LIBRARY 


PSYCHOLOGY 

AND 

SOCIAL  SANITY 


BOOKS  BY  HUGO  MUNSTERBERG 

Psychology  and  Life,  Boston,  1899 

Grundziige  der  Psychologic,  Leipzig,  1900 

American  Traits,  Boston,  1902 

Die  Amerikaner,  Berlin,  1904 

The  Americans,  New  York,  1904 

Principles  of  Art  Education,  New  York,  1905 

The  Eternal  Life,  Boston,  1905 

Science  and  Idealism,  Boston,  1906 

Philosophic  der  Werte,  Leipzig,  1907 

On  the  Witness  Stand,  New  York,  1908 

Aus  Deutsch  Amerika,  Berlin,  1908 

The  Eternal  Values,  Boston,  1909 

Psychotherapy,  New  York,  1909 

Psychology  and  the  Teacher,  New  York,  1910 

American  Problems,  New  York,  1910 

Psychologic  und  Wirtschaftsleben,  Berlin,  1912 

Vocation  and  Learning,  St.  Louis,  1912 

Psychology  and  Industrial  Efficiency,  Boston,  1913 

American  Patriotism,  New  York,  1913 

Grundziige  der  Psychotechnik,  Leipzig,  1914 

Psychology  and  Social  Sanity,  New  York,  1914 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND 
SOCIAL  SANITY 


BY 
HUGO  MUNSTERBERG 


DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  CO. 

GARDEN  CITY  NEW  YORK 

1914 


Copyright,  1914,  by 
DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE   &  COMPANY 

All  rights  reserved,  including  that  of 

translation  into  foreign  languages, 

including  the  Scandinavian 


To 
DR.  I.  ADLER 

IN  FRIENDSHIP 


PREFACE 

It  has  always  seemed  to  me  a  particular  duty  of  the 
psychologist  from  time  to  time  to  leave  his  laboratory 
and  with  his  little  contribution  to  serve  the  outside 
interests  of  the  community.  Our  practical  life  is  filled 
with  psychological  problems  which  have  to  be  solved 
somehow*,  and  if  everything  is  left  to  commonsense  and 
to  unscientific  fancies  about  the  mind,  confusion  must 
result,  and  the  psychologist  who  stands  aloof  will  be 
to  blame. 

Hence  I  tried  in  my  little  book  "On  the  Witness 
Stand"  to  discuss  for  those  interested  in  law  the  value 
of  exact  psychology  for  the  problems  of  the  courtroom. 
In  "Psychotherapy"  I  showed  the  bearing  of  a 
scientific  study  of  the  mind  on  medicine.  In  "Psy- 
chology and  the  Teacher"  I  outlined  its  consequences 
for  educational  problems.  In  "Psychology  and  In- 
dustrial Efficiency"  I  studied  the  importance  of  exact 
psychology  for  commerce  and  industry.  And  I  con- 
tinue this  series  by  the  present  little  volume,  which 
speaks  of  psychology's  possible  service  to  social  sanity. 

vii 


PREFACE 

I  cannot  promise  that  even  this  will  be  the  last,  as  I 
have  not  yet  touched  on  psychology's  relation  to  re- 
ligion, to  art,  and  to  politics. 

The  field  which  I  have  approached  this  time  de- 
manded a  different  kind  of  treatment  from  that  in  the 
earlier  books.  There  I  had  aimed  at  a  certain  syste- 
matic completeness.  When  we  come  to  the  social 
questions,  such  a  method  would  be  misleading,  as  any 
systematic  study  of  these  psychological  factors  is  still 
a  hope  for  the  future.  Many  parts  of  the  field  have 
never  yet  been  touched  by  the  plow  of  the  psychologist. 
The  only  method  which  seems  possible  to-day  is  to 
select  a  few  characteristic  topics  of  social  discussion  and 
to  outline  for  each  of  them  in  what  sense  a  psychologist 
might  contribute  to  the  solution  or  might  at  least  fur- 
ther the  analysis  of  the  problem.  The  aim  is  to  show 
that  our  social  difficulties  are  ultimately  dependent 
upon  mental  conditions  which  ought  to  be  cleared  up 
with  the  methods  of  modern  pyschology. 

I  selected  as  illustrations  those  social  questions  which 
seemed  to  me  most  significant  for  our  period.  A  few 
of  them  admitted  an  approach  with  experimental 
methods,  others  merely  a  dissection  of  the  psychological 
and  psychophysiological  roots.  The  problems  of  sex, 
of  socialism,  and  of  superstition  seemed  to  me  especially 


PREFACE 

important,  and  if  some  may  blame  me  for  overlooking 
the  problem  of  suffrage,  I  can  at  least  refer  to  the  chap- 
ter on  the  jury,  which  comes  quite  near  to  this  militant 
question. 

Most  of  this  material  appears  here  for  the  first  time. 
The  chapter  on  thought  transference,  however,  was 
published  in  shorter  form  in  the  Metropolitan  Magazine, 
that  on  the  jury,  also  abbreviated,  in  the  Century  Mag- 
azine, and  that  on  naive  psychology  in  the  Atlantic 
Monthly.  The  paper  on  sexual  education  is  an  argu- 
ment, and  at  the  same  time  an  answer  in  a  vivid  dis- 
cussion. Last  summer  I  published  in  the  New  York 
Times  an  article  which  dealt  with  the  sex  problem.  It 
led  to  vehement  attacks  from  all  over  the  country. 
The  present  long  paper  replies  to  them  fully.  I  hope 
sincerely  that  it  will  be  my  last  word  in  the  matter. 
The  advocates  of  sexual  talk  now  have  the  floor;  from 
now  on  I  shall  stick  to  the  one  policy  in  which  I  firmly 
believe,  the  policy  of  silence. 

HUGO   MUNSTERBERQ. 

Cambridge,  Mass.,  January,  1914. 


CONTENTS 

MOB 

PREFACE vii 

CHAPTER 

I.     SEX  EDUCATION 3 

II.     SOCIALISM 71 

HI.    THE  INTELLECTUAL  UNDERWORLD     ....  113 

IV.     THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE ,  141 

V.    THE  MIND  OF  THE  JURYMAN 181 

VI.     EFFICIENCY  ON  THE  FARM        205 

VII.    SOCIAL  SINS  IN  ADVERTISING 229 

VJLLL.    THE  MIND  OF  THE  INVESTOR 253 

IX.    SOCIETY  AND  THE  DANCE 273 

X.    NAIVE  PSYCHOLOGY    , 291 


PSYCHOLOGY 

AND 

SOCIAL  SANITY 


I 

SEX  EDUCATION 

THE  time  is  not  long  past  when  the  social  question 
was  understood  to  mean  essentially  the  question  of  the 
distribution  of  profit  and  wages.  The  feeling  was  that 
everything  would  be  all  right  in  our  society,  if  this  great 
problem  of  labour  and  property  could  be  solved  rightly. 
But  in  recent  years  the  chief  meaning  of  the  phrase  has 
shifted.  Of  all  the  social  questions  the  predominant, 
the  fundamentally  social  one,  seems  nowadays  the 
problem  of  sex,  with  all  its  side  issues  of  social  evils  and 
social  vice.  It  is  as  if  society  feels  instinctively  that 
these  problems  touch  still  deeper  layers  of  the  social 
structure.  Even  the  fights  about  socialism  and  the 
whole  capitalistic  order  do  not  any  longer  stir  the  con- 
science of  the  community  so  strongly  as  the  grave  con- 
cern about  the  family.  All  public  life  is  penetrated  by 
sexual  discussions,  magazines  and  newspapers  are  over- 
flooded  with  considerations  of  the  sexual  problem,  on 
the  stage  one  play  of  sexual  reform  is  pushed  off  by  the 

[3] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY  ,  x 
next,  the  pulpit  resounds  with  sermons  on  sex,  sex 
education  enters  into  the  schools,  legislatures  and 
courts  are  drawn  into  this  whirl  of  sexualized  public 
opinion;  the  old-fashioned  policy  of  silence  has  been 
crushed  by  a  policy  of  thundering  outcry,  which  is 
heard  in  every  home  and  every  nursery.  This  loud- 
ness  of  debate  is  surely  an  effect  of  the  horror  with 
which  the  appalling  misery  around  us  is  suddenly 
discovered.  All  which  was  hidden  by  prudery  is  dis- 
closed in  its  viciousness,  and  this  outburst  of  indig- 
nation is  the  result.  Yet  it  would  never  have  swollen 
to  this  overwhelming  flood  if  the  nation  were  not  con- 
vinced that  this  is  the  only  way  to  cause  a  better- 
ment and  a  new  hope.  The  evil  was  the  result  of  the 
silence  itself.  Free  speech  and  public  discussion  alone 
can  remove  the  misery  and  cleanse  the  social  lif e.  The 
parents  must  know,  and  the  teachers  must  know,  and 
the  boys  must  know,  and  the  girls  must  know,  if  the 
abhorrent  ills  are  ever  to  be  removed. 

But  there  are  two  elements  in  the  situation  which 
ought  to  be  separated  in  sober  thought.  There  may  be 
agreement  on  the  one  and  yet  disagreement  on  the 
other.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  disagree  on  the  one  fac- 
tor of  the  situation,  the  existence  of  horrid  calamities, 
and  of  deplorable  abuses  in  the  world  of  sex,  evils  of 

[4] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

which  surely  the  average  person  knew  rather  little,  and 
which  were  systematically  hidden  from  society,  and 
above  all,  from  the  youth,  by  the  traditional  method  of 
reticence.  To  recognize  these  abscesses  in  the  social 
organism  necessarily  means  for  every  decent  being  the 
sincere  and  enthusiastic  hope  of  removing  them.  There 
cannot  be  any  dissent.  It  is  a  holy  war,  if  society 
fights  for  clean  living,  for  protection  of  its  children 
against  sexual  rum  and  treacherous  diseases,  against 
white  slavery  and  the  poisoning  of  married  life.  But 
while  there  must  be  perfect  agreement  about  the  moral 
duty  of  the  social  community,  there  can  be  the  widest 
disagreement  about  the  right  method  of  carrying  on  this 
fight.  The  popular  view  of  the  day  is  distinctly  that 
as  these  evils  were  hidden  from  sight  by  the  policy  of 
silence,  the  right  method  of  removing  them  from  the 
world  must  be  the  opposite  scheme,  the  policy  of  un- 
veiled speech.  The  overwhelming  majority  has  come  to 
this  conclusion  as  if  it  were  a  matter  of  course.  The 
man  on  the  street,  and  what  is  more  surprising,  the  wo- 
man in  the  home,  are  convinced  that,  if  we  disapprove 
of  those  evils,  we  must  first  of  all  condemn  the  silence 
of  our  forefathers.  They  feel  as  if  he  who  sticks  to  the 
belief  in  silence  must  necessarily  help  the  enemies  of 
society,  and  become  responsible  for  the  alarming  in- 

15] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
crease  of  sexual  affliction  and  crime.  They  refuse  to 
see  that  on  the  one  side  the  existing  facts  and  the  burn- 
ing need  for  their  removal,  and  on  the  other  side  the 
question  of  the  best  method  and  best  plan  for  the  fight, 
are  entirely  distinct,  and  that  the  highest  intention  for 
social  reform  may  go  together  with  the  deepest  convic- 
tion that  the  popular  method  of  the  present  day  is 
doing  incalculable  harm,  is  utterly  wrong,  and  is  one  of 
the  most  dangerous  causes  of  that  evil  which  it  hopes  to 
destroy. 

The  psychologist,  I  am  convinced,  must  here  stand 
on  the  unpopular  side.  To  be  sure,  he  is  not  unac- 
customed to  such  an  unfortunate  position  in  the  camp 
of  the  disfavoured  minority.  Whenever  a  great  move- 
ment sweeps  through  the  civilized  world,  it  generally 
starts  from  the  recognition  of  a  great  social  wrong  and 
from  the  enthusiasm  for  a  thorough  change.  But  these 
wrongs,  whether  they  have  political  or  social,  economic 
or  moral  character,  are  always  the  products  of  both 
physical  and  psychical  causes.  The  public  thinks  first  of 
all  of  the  physical  ones.  There  are  railroad  accidents: 
therefore  improve  the  physical  technique  of  the  signal 
system;  there  is  drunkenness:  therefore  remove  the 
whiskey  bottle.  The  psychical  element  is  by  no  means 
ignored.'  Yet  it  is  treated  as  if  mere  insight  into  the 

[6] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

cause,  mere  good  will  and  understanding,  are  sufficient 
to  take  care  of  the  mental  factors  involved.  The  social 
reformers  are  therefore  always  discussing  the  existing 
miseries,  the  possibilities  of  improvements  in  the  world 
of  things,  and  the  necessity  of  spreading  knowledge  and 
enthusiasm.  They  do  not  ask  the  advice  of  the  psychol- 
ogist, but  only  his  jubilant  approval,  and  they  always 
feel  surprised  if  he  has  to  acknowledge  that  there  seems 
to  him  something  wrong  in  the  calculation.  The  psy- 
chologist knows  that  the  mental  elements  cannot  be 
brought  under  such  a  simple  formula  according  to  which 
good  will  and  insight  are  sufficient;  he  knows  that  the 
mental  mechanism  which  is  at  work  there  has  its  own 
complicated  laws,  which  must  be  considered  with  the 
same  care  for  detail  as  those  technical  schemes  for  im- 
provement. The  psychologist  is  not  astonished  that 
though  the  technical  improvements  of  the  railways  are 
increased,  yet  one  serious  accident  follows  another,  as  long 
as  no  one  gives  attention  to  the  study  of  the  engineer's 
mind.  Nor  is  he  surprised  that  while  the  area  of  pro- 
hibition is  expanding  rapidly,  the  consumption  of  beer 
and  whiskey  is  nevertheless  growing  still  more  quickly, 
as  long  as  the  psychology  of  the  drinker  is  neglected. 
The  trusts  and  the  labour  movements,  immigration  and 
the  race  question,  the  peace  movement  and  a  score  of 

[7] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
other  social  problems  show  exactly  the  same  picture  — 
everywhere  insight  into  old  evils,  everywhere  enthu- 
siasm for  new  goals,  everywhere  attention  to  outside 
factors,  and  everywhere  negligence  of  those  functions 
of  the  mind  which  are  independent  of  the  mere  will  of 
the  individual. 

But  now  since  a  new  great  wave  of  discussion  has 
arisen,  and  the  sexual  problem  is  stirring  the  nation, 
the  psychologist's  faith  in  the  unpopular  policy  puts 
him  into  an  especially  difficult  position.  Whenever  he 
brings  from  his  psychological  studies  arguments  which 
point  to  the  errors  in  public  prejudices,  he  can  present 
his  facts  in  full  array.  Nothing  hinders  him  from  speak- 
ing with  earnestness  against  the  follies  of  hasty  and 
short-sighted  methods  in  every  concern  of  public  life, 
if  he  has  the  courage  to  oppose  the  fancies  of  the  day. 
But  the  fight  in  favour  of  the  policy  of  silence  is  dif- 
ferent. If  he  begins  to  shout  his  arguments,  he  him- 
self breaks  that  role  of  silence  which  he  recommends. 
He  speaks  for  a  conviction,  which  demands  from  him 
first  of  all  that  he  shall  not  speak.  The  more  eagerly 
he  spreads  his  science,  the  more  he  must  put  himself 
in  the  wrong  before  his  own  conscience.  He  is  thus 
thrown  into  an  unavoidable  conflict.  If  he  is  silent, 
the  cause  of  his  opponents  will  prosper,  and  if  he  ob- 

[8] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

jects  with  full  arguments,  his  adversaries  have  a  per- 
fect right  to  claim  that  he  himself  sets  a  poor  example 
and  that  his  psychology  helps  still  more  to  increase  that 
noisy  discussion  which  he  denounces  as  ruinous  to  the 
community.  But  hi  this  contradictory  situation  the 
circle  must  be  broken  somewhere,  and  even  at  the  risk 
of  adding  to  the  dangerous  tumult  which  he  condemns, 
the  psychologist  must  break  his  silence  in  order  to  plead 
for  silence.  I  shall  have  to  go  into  all  the  obnoxious 
detail,  for  if  I  yielded  to  my  feeling  of  disgust,  my  ret- 
icence would  not  help  the  cause  while  all  others  are 
shouting.  I  break  silence  in  order  to  convince  others 
that  if  they  were  silent,  too,  our  common  social  hopes 
and  wishes  would  be  nearer  to  actual  fulfilment. 

But  let  us  acknowledge  from  the  start  that  we  stand 
before  an  extremely  complicated  question,  in  which  no 
routine  formula  can  do  justice  to  the  manifoldness  of 
problems.  Most  of  these  discussions  are  misshaped 
from  the  beginning  by  the  effort  to  deal  with  the  whole 
social  sex  problem,  while  only  one  or  another  feature  is 
seriously  considered.  Now  it  is  white  slavery,  and 
now  the  venereal  diseases;  now  the  demands  of  eu- 
genics, and  now  the  dissipation  of  boys;  now  the  in- 
fluence of  literature  and  drama,  and  now  the  effect  of 
sexual  education  in  home  and  school;  now  the  medical 

[91 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
situation  and  the  demands  of  hygiene,  and  now  the 
moral  situation  and  the  demands  of  religion;  now  the 
influence  on  the  feministic  movement,  and  now  on  art 
and  social  life;  now  the  situation  in  the  educated  middle 
classes,  and  now  in  the  life  of  the  millions.  We  ought 
to  disentangle  the  various  threads  in  this  confusing 
social  tissue  and  follow  each  by  itself.  We  shall  see 
soon  enough  that  not  only  the  various  elements  of  the 
situation  awake  very  different  demands,  but  that  often 
any  single  feature  may  lead  to  social  postulates  which 
interfere  with  each  other.  Any  regulation  prescription 
falsifies  the  picture  of  the  true  needs  of  the  time. 

II 

We  certainly  follow  the  present  trend  of  the  discus- 
sion if  we  single  out  first  of  all  the  care  for  the  girls  who 
are  in  danger  of  becoming  victims  of  private  or  profes- 
sional misuse  as  the  result  of  their  ignorance  of  the 
world  of  erotics.  This  type  of  alarming  news  most 
often  reaches  the  imagination  of  the  newspaper  reader 
nowadays,  and  this  is  the  appeal  of  the  most  sensational 
plays.  The  spectre  of  the  white  slavery  danger  threat- 
ens the  whole  nation,  and  the  gigantic  number  of  ille- 
gitimate births  seems  fit  to  shake  the  most  indifferent 
citizen.  Every  naive  girl  appears  a  possible  victim 

flOl 


SEX  EDUCATION 

of  man's  lust,  and  all  seem  to  agree  that  every  girl 
should  be  acquainted  with  the  treacherous  dangers 
which  threaten  her  chastity.  The  new  programme 
along  this  line  centres  in  one  remedy:  the  girls  of  all 
classes  ought  to  be  informed  about  the  real  conditions 
before  they  have  an  opportunity  to  come  into  any 
bodily  contact  with  men.  How  far  the  school  is  to 
spread  this  helpful  knowledge,  how  far  the  wisdom  of 
parents  is  to  fill  these  blanks  of  information,  how  far 
serious  literature  is  to  furnish  such  science,  and  how 
far  the  stage  or  even  the  film  is  to  bring  it  to  the  masses, 
remains  a  secondary  feature  of  the  scheme,  however 
much  it  is  discussed  among  the  social  reformers. 

The  whole  new  wisdom  proceeds  according  to  the 
simple  principle  which  has  proved  its  value  in  the  field 
of  popular  hygiene.  The  health  of  the  nation  has  in- 
deed been  greatly  improved  since  the  alarming  ignor- 
ance in  the  matters  of  prophylaxis  in  disease  has  been 
systematically  fought  by  popular  information.  If  the 
mosquito  or  the  hookworm  or  the  fly  is  responsible  for 
diseases  from  which  hundreds  of  thousands  have  to  suf- 
fer, there  can  be  no  wiser  and  straighter  policy  than  to 
spread  this  knowledge  to  every  corner  of  the  country. 
The  teachers  in  the  schoolroom  and  the  writers  in  the 
popular  magazines  cannot  do  better  than  to  repeat  the 

[11] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
message,  until  every  adult  and  every  child  knows  where 
the  enemy  may  be  found  and  helps  to  destroy  the  in- 
sects and  to  avoid  the  dangers  of  contact.  This  is  the 
formula  after  which  those  reformers  want  to  work  who 
hold  the  old-fashioned  policy  of  silence  in  sexual  mat- 
ters to  be  obsolete.  Of  course  they  aim  toward  a  mild 
beginning.  It  may  start  with  beautiful  descriptions  of 
blossoms  and  of  fruits,  of  eggs  and  of  hens,  before  it 
comes  to  the  account  of  sexual  intercourse  and  human 
embryos,  but  if  the  talking  is  to  have  any  effect  supe- 
rior to  not  talking,  the  concrete  sexual  relations  must 
be  impressed  upon  the  imagination  of  the  girl  before 
she  becomes  sixteen  years  of  age. 

Here  is  the  real  place  for  the  psychological  objection. 
It  is  not  true  that  you  can  bring  such  sexual  knowledge 
into  the  mind  of  a  girl  in  the  period  of  her  development 
with  the  same  detachment  with  which  you  can  deposit 
in  her  mind  the  knowledge  about  mosquitoes  and  house- 
flies.  That  prophylactic  information  concerning  the 
influence  of  the  insects  on  diseases  remains  an  isolated 
group  of  ideas,  which  has  no  other  influence  on  the  mind 
than  the  intended  one,  the  influence  of  guiding  the 
actions  in  a  reasonable  direction.  The  information 
about  her  sexual  organs  and  the  effects  on  the  sexual 
organism  of  men  may  also  have  as  one  of  its  results  a 

[12] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

certain  theoretical  willingness  to  avoid  social  dangers. 
But  the  far  stronger  immediate  effect  is  the  psycho- 
physiological  reverberation  in  the  whole  youthful  or- 
ganism with  strong  reactions  on  its  blood  vessels  and 
on  its  nerves.  The  individual  differences  are  extremely 
great  here.  On  every  social  level  we  find  cool  natures 
whose  frigidity  would  inhibit  strong  influences  in  these 
organic  directions.  But  they  are  the  girls  who  have 
least  to  fear  anyhow.  With  a  much  larger  number  the 
information,  however  slowly  and  tactfully  imparted, 
must  mean  a  breaking  down  of  inhibitions  which  held 
sexual  feelings  and  sexual  curiosity  in  check. 

The  new  ideas  become  the  centre  of  attention,  the 
whole  world  begins  to  appear  in  a  new  light,  everything 
which  was  harmless  becomes  full  of  meaning  and  sug- 
gestion, new  problems  awake,  and  the  new  ideas  irra- 
diate over  the  whole  mental  mechanism.  The  new 
problems  again  demand  their  answers.  Just  the  type 
of  girl  to  whom  the  lure  might  become  dangerous  will  be 
pushed  to  ever  new  inquiries,  and  if  the  policy  of  infor- 
mation is  accepted  in  principle,  it  would  be  only  wise 
to  furnish  her  with  all  the  supplementary  knowledge 
which  covers  the  multitude  of  sexual  perversions  and 
social  malpractices  of  which  to-day  many  a  clean  mar- 
ried woman  has  not  the  faintest  idea.  But  to  such  a 

[13] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
girl  who  knows  all,  the  surroundings  appear  in  the  new 
glamour.  She  understands  now  how  her  body  is  the 
object  of  desire,  she  learns  to  feel  her  power,  and  all  this 
works  backward  on  her  sexual  irritation,  which  soon 
overaccentuates  everything  which  stands  in  relation  to 
sex.  Soon  she  lives  in  an  atmosphere  of  high  sexual 
tension  in  which  the  sound  and  healthy  interests  of  a 
young  life  have  to  suffer  by  the  hysterical  emphasis  on 
sexuality.  The  Freudian  psychoanalysis,  which  threat- 
ens to  become  the  fad  of  the  American  neurologists, 
probably  goes  too  far  when  it  seeks  the  cause  for  all 
neurasthenic  and  hysteric  disturbances  in  repressed 
sexual  ideas  of  youth.  But  no  psychotherapist  can 
doubt  that  the  havoc  which  secret  sexual  thoughts 
may  bring  to  the  neural  life,  especially  of  the  unbal- 
anced, is  tremendous.  Broken  health  and  a  distorted 
view  of  the  social  world  with  an  unsound,  unclean,  and 
ultimately  immoral  emphasis  on  the  sexual  relations  may 
thus  be  the  sad  result  for  millions  of  girls,  whose  girl- 
hood under  the  policy  of  the  past  would  have  remained 
untainted  by  the  sordid  ideas  of  man  as  an  animal. 

Yet  the  calamity  would  not  be  so  threatening  if  the 
effect  of  sexual  instruction  were  really  confined  to  the 
putrid  influence  on  the  young  imagination.  The  real 
outcome  is  not  only  such  a  revolution  in  the  thoughts, 

114] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

but  the  power  which  it  gains  over  action.  We  have 
only  to  consider  the  mechanism  which  nature  has  pro- 
vided. The  sexual  desire  belongs  to  the  same  group  of 
human  instincts  as  the  desire  for  food  or  the  desire  for 
sleep,  all  of  which  aim  toward  a  certain  biological  end, 
which  must  be  fulfilled  in  order  to  secure  life.  The 
desire  for  food  and  sleep  serves  the  individual  himself, 
the  desire  for  the  sexual  act  serves  the  race.  In  every 
one  of  these  cases  nature  has  furnished  the  body  with  a 
wonderful  psychophysical  mechanism  which  enforces 
the  outcome  automatically.  In  every  case  we  have  a 
kind  of  circulatory  process  into  which  mental  excite- 
ments and  physiological  changes  enter,  and  these  are 
so  subtly  related  to  each  other  that  one  always  in- 
creases the  other,  until  the  maximum  desire  is  reached, 
to  which  the  will  must  surrender.  Nature  needs  this 
automatic  function;  otherwise  the  vital  needs  of  in- 
dividual and  race  might  be  suppressed  by  other  inter- 
ests, and  neglected.  In  the  case  of  the  sexual  instinct, 
the  mutual  relations  between  the  various  parts  of  this 
circulatory  process  are  especially  complicated.  Here 
it  must  be  sufficient  to  say  that  the  idea  of  sexual  pro- 
cesses produces  dilation  of  blood  vessels  in  the  sexual 
sphere,  and  that  this  physiological  change  itself  becomes 
the  source  and  stimulus  for  more  vivid  sexual  feelings, 

[15] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
which  associate  themselves  with  more  complex  sexual 
thoughts.  These  in  their  turn  reinforce  again  the 
physiological  effect  on  the  sexual  organ,  and  so  the  play 
goes  on  until  the  irritation  of  the  whole  sexual  appara- 
tus and  the  corresponding  sexual  mental  emotions  reach 
a  height  at  which  the  desire  for  satisfaction  becomes 
stronger  than  any  ordinary  motives  of  sober  reason. 

This  is  the  great  trick  of  nature  in  its  incessant  ser- 
vice to  the  conservation  of  the  animd  race.  Mono- 
gamic  civilization  strives  to  regulate  and  organize  these 
race  instincts  and  to  raise  culture  above  the  mere  lure 
of  nature.  But  that  surely  cannot  be  done  by  merely 
ignoring  that  automatic  mechanism  of  nature.  On  the 
contrary,  the  first  demand  of  civilization  must  be  to 
make  use  of  this  inborn  psychophysical  apparatus  for  its 
own  ideal  human  purposes,  and  to  adjust  the  social 
behaviour  most  delicately  to  the  unchangeable  mech- 
anism. The  first  demand,  accordingly,  ought  to  be 
that  we  excite  no  one  of  these  mutually  reinforcing 
parts  of  the  system,  neither  the  organs  nor  the  thoughts 
nor  the  feelings,  as  each  one  would  heighten  the  activi- 
ties of  the  others,  and  would  thus  become  the  starting 
point  of  an  irrepressible  demand  for  sexual  satisfac- 
tion. The  average  boy  or  girl  cannot  give  theoretical 
attention  to  the  thoughts  concerning  sexuality  without 

[16] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

the  whole  mechanism  for  reinforcement  automatically 
entering  into  action.  We  may  instruct  with  the  best 
intention  to  suppress,  and  yet  our  instruction  itself 
must  become  a  source  of  stimulation,  which  neces- 
sarily creates  the  desire  for  improper  conduct.  The 
policy  of  silence  showed  an  instinctive  understanding  of 
this  fundamental  situation.  Even  if  that  traditional 
policy  had  had  no  positive  purpose,  its  negative  func- 
tion, its  leaving  at  rest  the  explosive  sexual  system  of  the 
youth,  must  be  acknowledged  as  one  of  those  wonderful 
instinctive  procedures  by  which  society  protects  itself. 
The  reformer  might  object  that  he  gives  not  only 
information,  but  depicts  the  dangers  and  warns  against 
the  ruinous  effects.  He  evidently  fancies  that  such  a 
black  frame  around  the  luring  picture  will  be  a  strong 
enough  countermotive  to  suppress  the  sensual  desire. 
But  while  the  faint  normal  longing  can  well  be  balanced 
by  the  trained  respect  for  the  mysterious  unknown, 
the  strongly  accentuated  craving  of  the  girl  who  knows 
may  ill  be  balanced  by  any  thought  of  possible  dis- 
agreeable consequences.  Still  more  important,  how- 
ever, is  a  second  aspect.  The  girl  to  whom  the  world 
sex  is  the  great  taboo  is  really  held  back  from  lascivious 
life  by  an  instinctive  respect  and  anxiety.  As  soon 
as  girl  and  boy  are  knowers,  all  becomes  a  matter 

[171 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
of  naked  calculation.  What  they  have  learned  from 
their  instruction  in  home  and  school  and  liter 
ature  and  drama  is  that  the  unmarried  woman  must 
avoid  becoming  a  mother.  Far  from  enforcing  a  less 
sensuous  life,  this  only  teaches  them  to  avoid  the  social 
opprobrium  by  going  skilfully  to  work.  The  old- 
fashioned  morality  sermon  kept  the  youth  on  the  paths 
of  clean  life;  the  new-fashioned  sexual  instruction 
stimulates  not  only  their  sensual  longings,  but  also 
makes  it  entirely  clear  to  the  young  that  they  have 
nothing  whatever  to  fear  if  they  yield  to  their  volup- 
tuousness but  make  careful  use  of  their  new  physiologi- 
cal knowledge.  From  my  psychotherapeutic  activity,  I 
know  too  well  how  much  vileness  and  perversity  are 
gently  covered  by  the  term  flirtation  nowadays  in  the 
circle  of  those  who  have  learned  early  to  conceal  the  traces. 
The  French  type  of  the  demi-vierge  is  just  beginning  to 
play  its  role  in  the  new  world.  The  new  policy  will  bring 
in  the  great  day  for  her,  and  with  it  a  moral  poisoning 
which  must  be  felt  in  the  whole  social  atmosphere. 

Ill 

We  have  not  as  yet  stopped  to  examine  whether  at 
least  the  propaganda  for  the  girl's  sexual  education 
starts  rightly  when  it  takes  for  granted  that  ignorance 

[18] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

is  the  chief  source  for  the  fall  of  women.  The  sociolog- 
ical student  cannot  possibly  admit  this  as  a  silent  pre- 
supposition. In  many  a  pathetic  confession  we  have 
read  as  to  the  past  of  fallen  girls  that  they  were  not 
aware  of  the  consequences.  But  it  would  be  utterly 
arbitrary  to  construe  even  such  statements  as  proofs 
that  they  were  unaware  of  the  limits  which  society 
demanded  from  them.  If  a  man  breaks  into  a  neigh- 
bour's garden  by  night  to  steal,  he  may  have  been 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  shooting  traps  were  laid  there 
for  thieves,  but  that  does  not  make  him  worthy  of  the 
pity  which  we  may  offer  to  him  who  suffers  by  ignor- 
ance only.  The  melodramatic  idea  that  a  straight- 
forward girl  with  honest  intent  is  abducted  by  strangers 
and  held  by  physical  force  in  places  of  degradation  can 
simply  be  dismissed  from  a  discussion  of  the  general 
situation.  The  chances  that  any  decent  man  or 
woman  will  be  killed  by  a  burglar  are  a  hundred  times 
larger  than  that  a  decent  girl  without  fault  of  her  own 
will  become  the  victim  of  a  white  slavery  system  which 
depends  upon  physical  force.  Since  the  new  policy  of 
antisilence  has  filled  the  newspapers  with  the  most 
filthy  gossip  about  such  imaginary  horrors,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  frivolous  girls  who  elope  with  their  lovers 
later  invent  stories  of  criminal  detention,  first  by  half 

[19] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
poisoning  and  afterward  by  handcuffing.  Of  all  the  sys- 
tematic, thorough  investigations,  that  of  the  Vice  Com- 
mission of  Philadelphia  seems  so  far  the  most  instructive 
and  most  helpful.  It  shows  the  picture  of  a  shameful 
and  scandalous  social  situation,  and  yet,  in  spite  of  years 
of  most  insistent  search  by  the  best  specialists,  it  says  in 
plain  words  that  "no  instances  of  actual  physical  slavery 
have  been  specifically  brought  to  our  attention." 

This  does  not  contradict  in  the  least  the  indubitable 
fact  that  in  all  large  cities  white  slavery  exists  in  the 
wider  sense  of  the  word  —  that  is,  that  many  girls  are 
kept  in  a  life  of  shame  because  the  escape  from  it  is 
purposely  made  difficult  to  them.  They  are  held  con- 
stantly in  debt  and  are  made  to  believe  that  their  im- 
munity from  arrest  depends  upon  their  keeping  on  good 
terms  with  the  owners  of  disorderly  houses.  But  the 
decisive  point  for  us  is  that  while  they  are  held  back 
at  a  time  when  they  know  too  much,  they  are  not 
brought  there  by  force  at  a  time  when  they  know 
too  little.  The  Philadelphia  Vice  Report  analyzes 
carefully  the  conditions  and  motives  which  have 
brought  the  prostitutes  to  their  life  of  shame.  The 
results  of  those  hundreds  of  interviews  point  nowhere 
to  ignorance.  The  list  of  reasons  for  entering  upon 
such  a  life  brings  information  like  this:  "She  liked 

[20] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

the  man,"  "  Wanted  to  see  what  immoral  life  was  like," 
"  Sneaked  out  for  pleasure,  got  into  bad  company," 
"Would  not  go  to  school,  frequented  picture  shows, 
got  into  bad  company,"  "Thought  she  would  have  a 
better  time,"  "Envied  girls  with  fine  clothes  and  gay 
time,"  **  Wanted  to  go  to  dances  and  theatres,"  "Went 
with  girls  who  drank,  influenced  by  them,"  "Liked  to  go 
to  moving  picture  shows,"  "Did  not  care  what  hap- 
pened when  forbidden  to  marry."  With  these  personal 
reasons  go  the  economic  ones:  "  Heard  immorality  was 
an  easy  way  to  make  money,  which  she  needed," 
"  Decided  that  this  was  the  easiest  way  of  earning 
money,"  "WTanted  pretty  clothes,"  "Never  liked  hard 
work,"  "Tired  of  drudgery  at  home,"  "Could  make 
more  money  this  way  than  in  a  factory."  Only  once  is 
it  reported:  "Chloroformed  at  a  party,  taken  to  man's 
house  and  ruined  by  him."  If  that  is  true,  we  have 
there  simply  a  case  of  actual  crime,  against  which  no- 
body can  be  protected  by  mere  knowledge.  In  short, 
a  thorough  study  indicates  clearly  that  the  girl  who 
falls  is  not  pushed  passively  into  her  misery. 

Surely  it  is  alarming  to  read  that  last  year  in  one 
single  large  city  of  the  Middle  West  two  hundred  school 
girls  have  become  mothers,  but  whoever  studies  the 
real  sociological  material  cannot  doubt  that  every  one 

[21] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
of  those  two  hundred  knew  very  clearly  that  she  was 
doing  something  which  she  ought  not  to  do.  Every  one 
of  them  had  knowledge  enough,  and  if  the  knowledge 
was  often  vague  and  dirty,  the  effect  would  not  have 
been  improved  by  substituting  for  it  more  knowledge, 
even  if  it  were  clearer  and  scientifically  more  correct. 
What  every  one  of  those  two  hundred  girls  needed  was 
less  knowledge — that  is,  less  familiarity  of  the  mind  with 
this  whole  group  of  erotic  ideas,  and  through  this  a 
greater  respect  for  and  fear  of  the  unknown.  Nobody 
who  really  understands  the  facts  of  the  sexual  world 
with  the  insight  of  the  physician  will  deny  that  never- 
theless treacherous  dangers  and  sources  of  misfortune 
may  be  near  to  any  girl,  and  that  they  might  be  avoided 
if  she  knew  the  truth.  But  then  it  is  no  longer  a  ques- 
tion of  a  general  truth,  which  can  be  implanted  by  any 
education,  but  a  specific  truth  concerning  the  special 
man.  The  husband  whom  she  marries  may  be  a 
scoundrel  who  infects  her  with  ruinous  disease,  but  even 
if  she  had  read  all  the  medical  books  beforehand  it 
would  not  have  helped  her. 

IV 

The  situation  of  the  boys  seems  hi  many  respects 
different.    They  are  on  the  aggressive  side.    There  is 

[22] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

no  danger  that  by  their  lack  of  knowledge  they  will  be 
lured  into  a  life  of  humiliation,  but  the  danger  of  their 
ruin  is  more  imminent  and  the  risk  which  parents  run 
with  them  is  far  worse.  Any  hour  of  reckless  fun  may 
bring  them  a  life  of  cruel  suffering.  The  havoc  which 
venereal  diseases  bring  to  the  men  of  all  social  classes  is 
tremendous.  The  Report  of  the  Surgeon-General  of  the 
Army  for  1911  states  that  with  the  mean  strength  of 
about  seventy -three  thousand  men  in  the  army,  the 
admissions  to  the  hospitals  on  account  of  venereal 
diseases  were  over  thirteen  thousand.  That  is,  of  any 
hundred  men  at  least  eighteen  were  ill  from  sexual  in- 
fection. The  New  York  County  Hospital  Society 
reports  two  hundred  and  forty-three  thousand  cases  of 
venereal  disease  treated  in  one  year,  as  compared  with 
forty-one  thousand  five  hundred  and  eighty-five  cases 
of  all  other  communicable  diseases.  This  horrible  sap- 
ping of  the  physical  energies  of  the  nation,  with  the 
devastating  results  in  the  family,  with  the  poisoning  of 
the  germs  for  the  next  generation,  and  with  the  disas- 
trous diseases  of  brain  and  spinal  cord,  is  surely  the 
gravest  material  danger  which  exists.  How  small  com- 
pared with  that  the  thousands  of  deaths  from  crime  and 
accidents  and  wrecks!  how  insignificant  the  harvest  of 
human  life  which  any  war  may  reap !  And  all  this  can 

[23] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
ultimately  be  avoided,  not  only  by  abstinence,  but  by 
strict  hygiene  and  rigorous  social  reorganization.  At 
this  moment  we  have  only  to  ask  how  much  of  a  change 
for  the  better  can  be  expected  from  a  mere  sexual 
education  of  the  boys. 

From  a  psychological  point  of  view,  this  situation 
appears  much  more  difficult  than  that  of  the  girls.  All 
psychological  motives  speak  for  a  policy  of  silence  in 
the  girls'  cases.  For  the  boys,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
importance  of  some  hygienic  instruction  cannot  be 
denied.  A  knowledge  of  the  disastrous  consequences 
of  sexual  diseases  must  have  a  certain  influence  for 
good,  and  the  grave  difficulty  lies  only  in  the  fact  that 
nevertheless  all  the  arguments  which  speak  against  the 
sexual  education  of  the  girls  hold  for  the  boys,  too.  The 
harm  to  the  youthful  imagination,  the  starting  of 
erotic  thoughts  with  sensual  excitement  in  conse- 
quence of  any  kind  of  sexual  instruction  must  be  still 
greater  for  the  young  man  than  for  the  young  woman, 
as  he  is  more  easily  able  to  satisfy  his  desires.  We  must 
thus  undoubtedly  expect  most  evil  consequences  from 
the  instruction  of  the  boys;  and  yet  we  cannot  deny  the 
possible  advantages.  Their  hygienic  consciousness  may 
be  enriched  and  their  moral  consciousness  tainted  by  the 
same  hour  of  well-meant  instruction.  With  the  girls  an 

[24] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

energetic  no  is  the  only  sane  answer;  with  the  boys  the 
social  reformer  may  well  hesitate  between  the  no  and  the 
yes.  The  balance  between  fear  and  hope  may  be  very 
even  there.  Yet,  however  depressing  such  a  decision  may 
be,  the  psychologist  must  acknowledge  that  even  here 
the  loss  by  frank  discussion  is  greater  than  the  gain. 

A  serious  warning  lies  in  the  well-known  fact  that  of  all 
professional  students,  the  young  medical  men  have  the 
worst  reputation  for  their  reckless  indulgence  in  an  erotic 
life.  They  know  most,  and  it  is  psychologically  not  sur- 
prising that  just  on  that  account  they  are  most  reckless. 
The  instinctive  fear  of  the  half  knower  has  left  them; 
they  live  in  an  illusory  safety,  the  danger  has  become 
familiar  to  them,  and  they  deceive  themselves  with  the 
idea  that  the  particular  case  is  harmless.  If  the  steps 
to  be  taken  were  to  be  worked  out  at  the  writing  desk 
in  cool  mood  and  sober  deliberation,  the  knowledge 
would  at  least  often  be  a  certain  help,  but  when  the 
passionate  desire  has  taken  hold  of  the  mind  and  the 
organic  tension  of  the  irritated  body  works  on  the  mind, 
there  is  no  longer  a  fair  fight  with  those  sober  reasons. 
The  action  of  the  glands  controls  the  psychophysical 
reactions,  so  that  the  ideas  which  would  lead  to  opposite 
response  are  inhibited.  Alcohol  and  the  imitative 
mood  of  social  gayety  may  help  to  dull  those  hygienic 

(251 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
fears,  but  on  the  whole  the  mere  sexual  longing  is  suf- 
ficient to  break  down  the  reminiscence  of  medical  warn- 
ing. The  situation  for  the  boy  is  then  ultimately  this: 
A  full  knowledge  of  the  chances  of  disease  will  start  in 
hours  of  sexual  coolness  on  the  one  side  a  certain  resolu- 
tion to  abstain  from  sexual  intercourse,  and  on  the 
other  side  a  certain  intention  to  use  protective  means  for 
the  prevention  of  venereal  diseases.  As  soon  as  the 
sexual  desire  awakes,  the  decision  of  the  first  kind  will 
become  the  less  effective,  and  will  be  the  more  easily 
overrun  the  more  firmly  the  idea  is  fixed  that  such  pre- 
ventive means  are  at  his  disposal.  At  the  same  time 
the  discussion  of  all  these  sexual  matters,  even  with 
their  gruesome  background,  will  force  on  the  mind  a 
stronger  engagement  with  sexual  thought  than  had 
ever  before  occurred,  and  this  will  find  its  discharge  in 
an  increased  sexual  tension.  On  the  other  hand,  this 
new  knowledge  of  means  of  safety  will  greatly  increase 
the  playing  with  danger.  Of  course  it  may  be  said 
that  the  education  ought  not  to  refer  only  to  sexual 
hygiene,  but  that  it  ought  to  be  a  moral  education. 
That,  however,  is  an  entirely  different  story.  We  shall 
speak  about  it;  we  shall  put  our  faith  in  it,  but  at  pres- 
ent we  are  talking  of  that  specific  sexual  education 
which  is  the  fad  of  the  day. 

[26] 


SEX  EDUCATION 
V 

Sexual  education,  to  be  sure,  does  not  necessarily 
mean  education  of  young  people  only.  The  adults  who 
know,  the  married  men  and  women  of  the  community, 
may  not  know  enough  to  protect  their  sons  and  daugh- 
ters. And  the  need  for  their  full  information  may 
stretch  far  beyond  their  personal  family  interests. 
They  are  to  form  the  public  opinion  which  must  stand 
behind  every  real  reform,  their  consciences  must  be 
stirred,  the  hidden  misery  must  be  brought  before  them. 
Thus  they  need  sexual  education  as  much  as  the  young- 
sters, only  they  need  it  in  a  form  which  appeals  to  them 
and  makes  them  willing  to  listen;  and  our  reformers 
have  at  last  discovered  the  form.  The  public  must  be 
taught  from  the  stage  of  the  theatre.  The  magazine 
with  its  short  stories  on  sex  incidents,  the  newspaper 
with  its  sensational  court  reports,  may  help  to  carry 
the  gruesome  information  to  the  masses,  but  the  deep- 
est impression  will  always  be  made  when  actual  human 
beings  are  shown  on  the  stage  in  their  appealing  dis- 
tress, as  living  accusations  against  the  rotten  founda- 
tions of  society.  The  stage  is  overcrowded  with  sexual 
drama  and  the  social  community  inundated  with  dis- 
cussions about  it. 

It  is  not  easy  to  find  the  right  attitude  toward  this 
[27] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
red-light  literature.  Many  different  interests  are  con- 
cerned, and  it  is  often  extremely  difficult  to  disentangle 
them.  Three  such  interests  stand  out  very  clearly :  the 
true  aesthetic  one,  the  purely  commercial  one,  and  the 
sociological  one.  It  would  be  wonderful  if  the  aesthetic 
culture  of  our  community  had  reached  a  development 
at  which  the  aesthetic  attitude  toward  a  play  would  be 
absolutely  controlling.  If  we  could  trust  this  aesthetic 
instinct,  no  other  question  would  be  admissible  but  the 
one  whether  the  play  is  a  good  work  of  art  or  not.  The 
social  inquiry  whether  the  human  fates  which  the  poet 
shows  us  suggests  legislative  reforms  or  hygienic  im- 
provements would  be  entirely  inhibited  in  the  truly 
artistic  consciousness.  It  would  make  no  difference  to 
the  spectator  whether  the  action  played  in  Chicago  or 
Petersburg,  whether  it  dealt  with  men  and  women  of  to- 
day or  of  two  thousand  years  ago.  The  human  element 
would  absorb  our  interest,  and  as  far  as  the  joys  and 
the  miseries  of  sexual  life  entered  into  the  drama,  they 
would  be  accepted  as  a  social  background,  just  as  the 
landscape  is  the  natural  background.  A  community 
which  is  aesthetically  mature  enough  to  appreciate 
Ibsen  does  not  leave  "The  Ghosts"  with  eugenic  reform 
ideas.  The  inherited  paralysis  on  a  luetic  basis  is 
accepted  there  as  a  tragic  element  of  human  fate.  On 

[28] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

the  height  of  true  art  the  question  of  decency  or  in- 
decency has  disappeared,  too.  The  nude  marble  statue 
is  an  inspiration,  and  not  a  possible  stimulus  to  frivol- 
ous sensuality,  if  the  mind  is  aesthetically  cultivated. 
The  nakedness  of  erotic  passion  in  the  drama  of  high 
aesthetic  intent  before  a  truly  educated  audience  has 
not  the  slightest  similarity  to  the  half -draped  chorus  of 
sensual  operetta  before  a  gallery  which  wants  to  be 
tickled.  But  who  would  claim  that  the  dramatic  litera- 
ture of  the  sexual  problems  with  which  the  last  seasons 
have  filled  the  theatres  from  the  orchestra  to  the  second 
balcony  has  that  sublime  aesthetic  intent,  or  that  it  was 
brought  to  a  public  which  even  posed  in  an  aesthetic 
attitude!  As  far  as  any  high  aim  was  involved,  it  was 
the  antisesthetic  moral  value.  The  plays  presented 
themselves  as  appeals  to  the  social  conscience,  and 
yet  this  idealistic  interpretation  would  falsify  the  true 
motives  on  both  sides.  The  crowd  went  because  it 
found  the  satisfaction  of  sexual  curiosity  and  erotic 
tension  through  the  unveiled  discussion  of  social  per- 
versities. And  the  managers  produced  the  plays  be- 
cause the  lurid  subjects  with  their  appeal  to  the  low 
instincts,  and  therefore  with  their  sure  commercial 
success,  could  here  escape  the  condemnation  of  police 
and  decent  public  as  they  were  covered  by  the  pre- 

[29] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
tence  of  social  reform.     How  far  the  writers  of  the  play 
of  prostitution  prostituted  art  in  order  to  share  the 
commercial  profits  in  this  wave  of  sexual  reform  may 
better  remain  undiscussed. 

What  do  these  plays  really  teach  us?  I  think  I  have 
seen  almost  all  of  them,  and  the  composite  picture  in 
my  mind  is  one  of  an  absurdly  distorted,  exaggerated, 
and  misleading  view  of  actual  social  surroundings, 
suggesting  wrong  problems,  wrong  complaints,  and 
wrong  remedies.  When  I  studied  the  reports  of  the 
vice  commissions  of  the  large  American  and  European 
cities,  the  combined  image  in  my  consciousness  was 
surely  a  stirring  and  alarming  one,  but  it  had  no  similar- 
ity with  the  character  of  those  melodramatic  vagaries . 
Even  the  best  and  most  famous  of  these  fabrications 
throw  wrong  sidelights  on  the  social  problems,  and 
by  a  false  emphasis  inhibit  the  feeling  for  the  pro- 
portions of  life.  If  in  "The  Fight"  the  father,  a  senator, 
visits  a  disorderly  house,  unlocks  the  room  in  which  the 
freshest  fruit  is  promised  him,  and  finds  there  his  young 
daughter  who  has  just  been  abducted  by  force,  the  facts 
themselves  are  just  as  absurd  as  the  following  scenes,  in 
which  this  father  shows  that  the  little  episode  did  not 
make  the  slightest  impression  on  him.  He  coolly  con- 
tinues to  fight  against  those  politicians  who  want  to 

[30] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

remove  such  places  from  the  town.  In  "Bought  and 
Paid  For  "  marriage  itself  is  presented  as  white  slavery. 
The  woman  has  to  tolerate  the  caresses  of  her  husband, 
even  when  he  has  drunk  more  champagne  than  is  wise 
for  him.  The  play  makes  us  believe  that  she  must 
suffer  his  love  because  she  was  poor  before  she  married 
and  he  has  paid  her  with  a  life  of  luxury.  Where  are 
we  to  end  if  such  logic  in  questions  of  sexual  intercourse 
is  to  benumb  common  sense?  England  brought  us 
"The  Blindness  of  Virtue,"  the  story  of  a  boy  and  a  girl 
whom  we  are  to  believe  to  be  constantly  in  grave  danger 
because  they  are  ignorant,  while  in  reality  nothing 
happens,  and  everything  suggests  that  the  moral  danger 
for  this  particular  girl  would  have  been  much  greater 
if  she  had  known  how  to  enjoy  love  without  conse- 
quences. 

The  most  sensational  specimen  of  the  group  was 
"The  Lure."  It  would  be  absurd  to  face  this  produc- 
tion from  any  aesthetic  point  of  view.  It  would  be  un- 
thinkable that  a  work  of  such  crudeness  could  satisfy 
a  metropolitan  public,  even  if  some  of  the  most  marked 
faults  of  construction  were  acknowledged  as  the  results 
of  the  forceful  expurgation  of  the  police.  Nevertheless, 
the  only  significance  of  the  play  lies  outside  of  its 
artistic  sphere,  and  belongs  entirely  to  its  effort  to  help 

[31] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
in  this  great  social  reform.  The  only  strong  applause, 
which  probably  repeats  itself  every  evening,  broke  out 
when  the  old,  good-natured  physician  said  that  as  soon 
as  women  have  the  vote  the  white  slavers  will  be  sent 
to  the  electric  chair.  But  it  is  worth  while  to  examine 
the  sermon  which  a  play  of  this  type  really  preaches, 
and  to  become  aware  of  the  illusions  with  which  the 
thoughtless  public  receives  this  message.  All  which  we 
see  there  on  the  stage  is  taken  by  the  masses  as  a  re- 
monstrance against  the  old,  cowardly  policy  of  silence, 
and  the  play  is  to  work  as  a  great  proof  that  complete 
frankness  and  clear  insight  can  help  the  daughters  of 
the  community. 

The  whole  play  contains  the  sad  story  of  two  girls. 
There  is  Nell.  What  happened  to  her?  She  is  the 
daughter  of  a  respectable  banker  in  a  small  town.  A 
scoundrel,  a  commercial  white  slaver,  a  typical  Broad- 
way "cadet"  with  luring  manners,  goes  to  the  small 
town,  finds  access  to  the  church  parlours,  is  introduced 
to  the  girl,  and  after  some  courtship  he  elopes  with  her 
and  makes  her  believe  that  they  are  correctly  married. 
After  the  fraudulent  marriage  with  a  falsified  license 
he  brings  her  into  a  metropolitan  disorderly  house  and 
holds  her  there  by  force.  Of  course  this  is  brutal  stage 
exaggeration,  but  even  if  this  impossibility  were  true, 

[32] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

what  conclusion  are  we  to  draw,  and  what  advice  are 
we  to  give?  Does  it  mean  that  in  future  a  young  girl 
who  meets  a  nice  chap  in  the  church  socials  of  her  native 
town  ought  to  keep  away  from  him,  because  she  ought 
all  the  time  to  think  that  he  might  be  a  delegate  of  a 
Broadway  brothel?  To  fill  a  girl  with  suspicions  in  a 
case  like  that  of  Nell  would  be  no  wiser  than  to  tell  the 
ordinary  man  that  he  ought  not  to  deposit  his  earnings 
in  any  bank,  because  the  cashier  might  run  away  with 
it.  To  be  sure,  it  would  have  been  better  if  Nell  had 
not  eloped,  but  is  there  any  knowledge  of  sexual 
questions  which  would  have  helped  her  to  a  wiser 
decision?  On  the  contrary,  she  said  she  did  elope  be- 
cause her  life  in  the  small  town  was  so  uninteresting, 
and  she  felt  so  lonely  and  was  longing  for  the  life  of  love. 
She  knew  all  which  was  to  be  known  then,  and  if  there 
had  been  any  power  to  hold  her  back  from  the  foolish 
elopement  it  could  have  been  only  a  kind  of  instinctive 
respect  for  the  traditional  demands  of  society,  that  kind 
of  respect  which  grows  up  from  the  policy  of  silence  and 
is  trampled  to  the  ground  by  the  policy  of  loud  talk. 

The  other  girl  in  the  play  is  Sylvia.  Her  fate  is  very 
different.  She  needs  melodramatic  money  for  her  sick 
mother.  Her  earnings  in  the  department  store  are  not 
enough.  The  sly  owner  of  a  treacherous  employment 

[33] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
agency  has  given  her  a  card  over  the  counter,  advising 
her  to  come  there,  when  she  needs  extra  employment. 
The  agency  keeps  open  in  the  evening.  She  tells  her 
mother  that  she  will  seek  some  extra  work  there.  The 
mother  warns  her  that  there  are  so  many  traps  for  decent 
girls,  and  she  answers  that  she  is  not  afraid  and  that 
she  will  be  on  the  lookout.  She  goes  there,  and  the  skil- 
ful owner  of  the  agency  shows  her  how  miserable  the 
pay  would  be  for  any  decent  evening  work,  and  how 
easily  she  can  earn  all  the  money  she  needs  for  her 
mother  if  she  is  willing  to  be  paid  by  men.  At  first  she 
refuses  with  pathos,  but  under  the  suggestive  pressure 
of  luring  arguments  she  slowly  weakens,  and  finally  con- 
sents to  exchange  her  street  gown  for  a  fantastic  cos- 
tume of  half-nakedness.  The  feelings  of  the  audience 
are  saved  by  the  detective  who  breaks  in  at  the  decisive 
moment,  but  the  arguments  of  the  advocates  of  sexual 
education  cannot  possibly  be  saved  after  that  volun- 
tary yielding.  Sylvia  knows  what  she  has  to  expect, 
and  no  more  intense  perusal  of  literature  on  the  subject 
of  prostitution  would  have  changed  her  mind.  What 
else  in  the  world  could  have  helped  her  in  such  an  hour 
but  a  still  stronger  feeling  of  instinctive  repugnance? 
If  Sylvia  was  actually  to  put  her  fate  on  a  mere  calcula- 
tion, with  a  full  knowledge  of  all  the  sociological  facts 

[34] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

involved,  she  probably  reasoned  wrongly  in  dealing  with 
this  particular  employment  agency,  but  was  on  the 
whole  not  so  wrong  in  deciding  that  a  frivolous  life 
would  be  the  most  reasonable  way  out  of  her  financial 
difficulties,  as  her  sexual  education  would  include,  of 
course,  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  all  which  is  needed  to 
avoid  conception  and  infection.  She  would  therefore 
know  that  after  a  little  while  of  serving  the  lust  of  men 
she  would  be  just  as  intact  and  just  as  attractive.  If 
society  has  the  wish  to  force  Sylvia  to  a  decision  in  the 
opposite  direction,  only  one  way  is  open:  to  make  the 
belief  in  the  sacred  value  of  virtue  so  deep  and  powerful 
that  any  mere  reasoning  and  calculation  loses  its 
strength.  But  that  is  possible  only  through  an  educa- 
tion which  relies  on  the  instinctive  respect  and  mystical 
belief.  Only  a  policy  of  silence  could  have  saved 
Sylvia,  because  that  alone  would  have  implanted  in  her 
mind  an  ineffable  idea  of  unknown  horrors  which  would 
await  her  when  she  broke  the  sacred  ring  of  chastity. 

The  climax  of  public  discussions  was  reached  when 
America  had  its  season  of  Brieux'  "Damaged  Goods." 
Its  topic  is  entirely  different,  as  it  deals  exclusively  with 
the  spreading  of  contagious  diseases  and  the  prevention 
of  their  destructive  influence  on  the  family.  Yet  the 
doubt  whether  such  a  dramatized  medical  lesson  be- 

[35] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
longs  on  the  metropolitan  stage  has  here  exactly  the 
same  justification.  Nevertheless,  it  brings  its  new  set  of 
issues.  Brieux'  play  does  not  deserve  any  interest  as 
a  drama.  With  complete  sincerity  the  theatre  pro- 
gramme announces,  "The  object  of  this  play  is  a  study 
of  the  disease  of  syphilis  in  its  bearing  on  marriage." 
The  play  was  first  produced  in  Paris  in  the  year  1901. 
It  began  its  great  medical  teaching  in  America  in  the 
spring  of  1913.  Even  those  who  have  only  superficial 
contact  with  medicine  know  that  the  twelve  years  which 
lie  between  those  dates  have  seen  the  greatest  progress 
in  the  study  of  syphilis  which  has  ever  been  made.  It 
is  sufficient  to  think  of  the  Wassermann  test,  the  Ehrlich 
treatment,  the  new  discoveries  concerning  the  relations 
of  lues  and  brain  disease,  and  many  other  details  in 
order  to  understand  that  a  clinical  lesson  about  this 
disease  written  in  the  first  year  of  the  century  must  be 
utterly  antiquated  in  its  fourteenth  year.  We  might 
just  as  well  teach  the  fighting  of  tuberculosis  with  the 
clinical  textbook  of  thirty  years  ago. 

How  misleading  many  of  the  claims  of  the  play  are 
ought  to  have  struck  even  the  unscientific  audience. 
The  real  centre  of  the  so-called  drama  is  that  the  father 
and  the  grandmother  of  the  diseased  infant  are  willing 
to  risk  the  health  of  the  wet  nurse  rather  than  to  allow 

[36] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

the  child  to  go  over  to  artificial  feeding.  The  whole 
play  loses  its  chief  point  and  its  greatest  pathetic  speech 
if  we  do  not  accept  the  Parisian  view  that  a  sickly  child 
must  die  if  it  has  its  milk  from  the  bottle.  The  Boston 
audience  wildly  applauded  the  great  speech  of  the 
grandmother  who  wants  to  poison  the  nurse  rather 
than  to  sacrifice  her  grandchild  to  the  drinking  of 
sterilized  milk,  and  yet  it  was  an  audience  which  surely 
was  brought  up  on  the  bottle.  It  would  be  very  easy 
to  write  another  play  in  which  quite  different  medical 
views  are  presented,  and  where  will  it  lead  us  if  the 
various  treatments  of  tuberculosis,  perhaps  by  the 
Friedmann  cures,  or  of  diphtheria,  perhaps  by  chiro- 
practice  or  osteopathy,  are  to  be  fought  out  on  the  stage 
until  finally  the  editors  of  Life  would  write  a  play 
around  their  usual  thesis  that  the  physicians  are  de- 
stroying mankind  and  that  our  modern  medicine  is 
humbug.  As  long  as  the  drama  shows  us  human  ele- 
ments, every  one  can  be  a  party  and  can  take  a  stand 
for  the  motives  of  his  heart.  But  if  the  stage  presents 
arguments  on  scientific  questions  in  which  no  public  is 
able  to  examine  the  facts,  the  way  is  open  for  any  one- 
sided propaganda. 

Moreover,  what,  after  all,  are  the  lessons  which  the 
men  are  to  learn  from  these  three  hours  of  talk  on  syph- 

[37] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
ilis?  To  be  sure,  it  is  suggested  that  it  would  be  best 
if  every  young  man  were  to  marry  early  and  remain 
faithful  to  his  wife  and  take  care  that  she  remain  faith- 
ful to  him.  But  this  aphorism  will  make  very  little 
impression  on  the  kind  of  listener  whose  tendency  would 
naturally  turn  him  in  other  directions.  He  hears  in  the 
play  far  more  facts  which  encourage  him  in  his  selfish 
instincts.  He  hears  the  old  doctor  assuring  his  patient 
that  not  more  than  a  negligible  10  per  cent,  of  all  men 
enter  married  life  without  having  had  sexual  inter- 
course with  women.  He  hears  that  the  disease  can  be 
easily  cured,  that  he  may  marry  quite  safely  after  three 
years,  that  the  harm  done  to  the  child  can  be  removed, 
and  that  no  one  ought  to  be  blamed  for  acquiring  the 
disease,  as  anybody  may  acquire  it  and  that  it  is  only  a 
matter  of  good  or  bad  luck.  The  president  of  the  Medi- 
cal Society  in  Boston  drew  the  perfectly  correct  con- 
sequences  when  in  a  warm  recommendation  of  the  play 
he  emphasized  the  importance  of  the  knowledge  about 
the  disease,  inasmuch  as  any  one  may  acquire  it  in  a 
hundred  ways  which  have  nothing  to  do  with  sexual 
life.  He  says  anybody  may  get  syphilis  by  wetting  a 
lead  pencil  with  his  lips  or  from  an  infected  towel  or 
from  a  pipe  or  from  a  drinking  glass  or  from  a  cigarette. 
This  is  medically  entirely  correct,  and  yet  if  Brieux  had 

[38] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

added  this  medical  truth  to  all  the  other  medical  sayings 
of  his  doctor,  he  would  have  taken  away  the  whole 
meaning  of  the  play  and  would  have  put  it  just  on 
the  level  of  a  dramatized  story  about  scarlet  fever  or 
typhoid. 

Yet  here,  too,  the  fundamental  mistake  remains  the 
psychological  one.  The  play  hopes  to  reform  by  the 
appeal  to  fear,  while  the  whole  mental  mechanism  of 
man  is  so  arranged  that  in  the  emotional  tension  of  the 
sexual  desire  the  argument  of  the  fear  that  we  may  have 
bad  luck  will  always  be  outbalanced  by  the  hope  and 
conviction  that  we  will  not  be  the  one  who  draws  the 
black  ball.  And  together  with  this  psychological  fact 
goes  the  other  stubborn  feature  of  the  mind,  which  no 
sermon  can  remove,  that  the  focussing  of  the  attention 
on  the  sexual  problems,  even  in  their  repelling  form, 
starts  too  often  a  reaction  of  glands  and  with  it  sexual 
thoughts  which  ultimately  lead  to  a  desire  for  satis- 
faction. 

The  cleverest  of  this  group  of  plays  strictly  intended 
for  sexual  education  —  as  Shaw's  "Mrs.  Warren's 
Profession"  or  plays  of  Pinero  and  similar  ones  would 
belong  only  indirectly  in  this  circle  —  is  probably 
Wedekind's  "Spring's  Awakening."  It  brought  to 
Germany,  and  especially  to  Berlin,  any  education  which 

[39] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
the  Friedrichstrasse  had  failed  to  bring.  To  prohibit 
it  would  have  meant  the  reactionary  crushing  of  a  dis- 
tinctly literary  work  by  a  brilliant  writer;  to  allow  it 
meant  to  fill  the  Berlin  life  for  seasons  with  a  new  spirit 
which  showed  its  effects.  The  sexual  discussion  became 
the  favourite  topic;  the  girls  learned  to  look  out  for  their 
safety:  and  it  was  probably  only  a  chance  that  at  the 
same  time  a  wave  of  immorality  overflooded  the  youth 
of  Berlin.  The  times  of  naive  flirtation  were  over;  any 
indecency  seemed  allowable  if  only  conception  was 
artificially  prevented.  The  social  life  of  Berlin  from 
the  fashionable  quarters  of  Berlin  West  to  the  factory 
quarters  of  Berlin  East  was  never  more  rotten  and  more 
perverse  than  in  those  years  in  which  sexual  education 
from  the  stage  indulged  in  its  orgies. 

The  central  problem  is  not  whether  the  facts  are  dis- 
torted or  not,  and  whether  the  suggestions  are  wise  or 
not,  and  whether  the  remedies  are  practicable  or  not. 
All  this  is  secondary  to  the  fundamental  question  of 
whether  it  is  wise  to  spread  out  such  problems  before 
the  miscellaneous  public  of  our  theatres.  No  doubt  a 
few  of  the  social  reformers  are  sprinkled  over  the  au- 
diences. There  are  a  few  in  the  boxes  as  well  as  in  the 
galleries  who  discern  the  realities  and  who  hear  the 
true  appeal,  even  through  those  grotesque  melodramas. 

[40] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

But  with  the  overwhelming  majority  it  is  quite  differ- 
ent. For  them  it  is  entertainment,  and  as  such  it  is 
devastating.  It  is  quite  true  that  many  a  piquant 
comic  opera  shows  more  actual  frivolity,  and  no  one 
will  underestimate  the  shady  influence  of  such  volup- 
tuous vulgarities  in  their  multicoloured  stage  setting. 
Yet  from  a  psychological  point  of  view  the  effect  of  the 
pathetic  treatment  is  far  more  dangerous  than  that  of 
the  frivolous.  A  good  many  well-meaning  reformers 
do  not  see  that,  because  they  know  too  little  of  the 
deeper  layers  of  the  sexual  imagination.  The  intimate 
connection  between  sexuality  and  cruelty,  perversion 
and  viciousness,  may  produce  much  more  injurious 
results  in  the  mind  of  the  average  man  when  he  sees 
the  tragedy  of  the  white  slave  than  when  he  laughs  at 
the  farce  of  the  chorus  girl.  Moreover,  even  the  infor- 
mation which  such  plays  divulge  may  stimulate  some 
model  citizens  to  help  the  police  and  the  doctors,  but 
it  may  suggest  to  a  much  larger  number  hitherto  un- 
known paths  of  viciousness.  The  average  New  Yorker 
would  hear  with  surprise  from  the  Rockefeller  Report 
on  Commercialized  Prostitution  in  New  York  City  that 
the  commission  has  visited  in  Manhattan  a  hundred 
and  forty  parlour  houses,  twenty  of  which  were  known 
to  the  trade  as  fifty-cent  houses,  eighty  as  one-dollar 

[41] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
houses,  six  as  two-dollar  houses,  and  thirty -four  as  five- 
and  ten-dollar  houses.  Yet  the  chances  are  great  that 
essentially  persons  with  serious  interests  in  social 
hygiene  turn  to  such  books  of  sober  study.  But  to  cry 
out  such  information  to  those  Broadway  crowds  which 
seek  a  few  hours'  fun  before  they  go  to  the  next  lobster 
palace  or  to  the  nearest  cabaret  cannot  possibly  serve 
social  hygiene. 

Worst  of  all,  the  theatre,  more  than  any  other  source 
of  so-called  information,  has  been  responsible  for  the 
breakdown  of  the  barriers  of  social  reserve  in  sexual 
discussions,  and  that  means  ultimately  in  erotic  be- 
haviour. The  book  which  the  individual  man  or 
woman  reads  at  his  fireside  has  no  socializing  influence, 
but  the  play  which  they  see  together  is  naturally  dis- 
cussed, views  are  exchanged,  and  all  which  in  old- 
fashioned  times  was  avoided,  even  in  serious  discussion, 
becomes  daily  more  a  matter  of  the  most  superficial 
gossip.  Wheir  recently  at  a  dinner  party  a  charming 
young  woman  whom  I  had  hardly  met  before  asked 
me,  when  we  were  at  the  oysters,  how  prostitution  is 
regulated  in  Germany,  and  did  not  conclude  the  subject 
before  we  had  reached  the  ice  cream,  I  saw  the  natural 
consequences  of  this  new  era  of  theatre  influence. 
Society,  which  with  the  excuse  of  philanthropic  so- 

[42] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

ciology  favours  erotically  tainted  problems,  must  sink 
down  to  a  community  in  which  the  sexual  relations  be- 
come chaotic  and  turbulent.  Finally,  the  theatre  is 
not  open  only  to  the  adult.  Its  filthy  message  reaches 
the  ears  of  boys  and  girls,  who,  even  if  they  take  it 
solemnly,  are  forced  to  think  of  these  facts  and  to  set 
the  whole  mechanism  of  sexual  associations  and  com- 
plex reactions  into  motion.  The  playwriters  know 
that  well,  but  they  have  their  own  theory.  When  I 
once  remonstrated  against  the  indecencies  which  are 
injected  into  the  imagination  of  the  adolescent  by  the 
plays,  Mr.  Bayard  Veiller,  the  talented  author  of  "The 
Fight,"  answered  in  a  Sunday  newspaper.  He  said 
that  he  could  not  help  thinking  of  the  insane  man  who 
objected  to  throwing  a  bucket  of  salt  water  into  the 
ocean  for  fear  it  would  turn  the  ocean  salt.  "Does 
not  Professor  Miinsterberg  know  that  you  can't 
put  more  sex  thoughts  into  the  minds  of  young  men 
and  women,  because  their  minds  contain  nothing 
else?"  If  the  present  movement  is  not  brought  to 
a  stop,  the  time  may  indeed  come  when  those  young 
minds  will  not  contain  anything  else.  But  is  that 
really  true  of  to-day,  and,  above  all,  was  it  true  of 
yesterday,  before  the  curtain  was  raised  on  the  red- 
light  drama? 

[43] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
VI 

How  is  it  possible  that  with  such  obvious  dangers  and 
such  evident  injurious  effects,  this  movement  on  the 
stage  and  in  literature,  in  the  schools  and  in  the  homes, 
is  defended  and  furthered  by  so  many  well-meaning 
and  earnest  thinking  men  and  women  in  the  com- 
munity? A  number  of  causes  may  have  worked  to- 
gether there.  It  cannot  be  overlooked  that  one  of  the 
most  effective  ones  was  probably  the  new  enthusiasm 
for  the  feministic  movement.  We  do  not  want  to  dis- 
cuss here  the  right  and  wrong  of  this  worldwide  ad- 
vance toward  the  fuller  liberation  of  women.  If  we 
have  to  touch  on  it  here,  it  is  only  to  point  out  that 
this  connection  between  the  sound  elements  of  the 
feministic  movement  and  the  propaganda  for  sex  edu- 
cation on  the  new-fashioned  lines  is  really  not  neces- 
sary at  all.  I  do  not  know  whether  the  feminists  are 
entirely  right,  but  I  feel  sure  that  their  own  principles 
ought  rather  to  lead  them  to  an  opposition  to  this  break- 
ing down  of  the  barriers.  It  is  nothing  but  a  super- 
ficiality if  they  instinctively  take  their  stand  on  the  side 
of  those  who  spread  broadcast  the  knowledge  about 
sex. 

The  feminists  vehemently  object  to  the  dual  stand- 
ard, but  if  they  help  everything  which  makes  sex  an 

[44] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

object  of  common  gossip,  it  may  work  indeed  toward  a 
uniform  standard;  only  the  uniformity  will  not  consist 
in  the  men's  being  chaste  like  the  women,  but  in  the 
women's  being  immoral  like  the  men.  The  feministic 
enthusiasm  turns  passionately  against  those  scandalous 
places  of  women's  humiliation;  and  yet  its  chief  in- 
fluence on  female  education  is  the  effort  to  give  more 
freedom  to  the  individual  girl,  and  that  means  to  re- 
move her  from  the  authority  and  discipline  of  the  par- 
ental home,  to  open  the  door  for  her  to  the  street,  to 
leave  her  to  her  craving  for  amusement,  to  smooth  the 
path  which  leads  to  ruin.  The  sincere  feminists  may 
say  that  some  of  the  changes  which  they  hope  for  are  so 
great  that  they  are  ready  to  pay  the  price  for  them  and 
to  take  in  exchange  a  rapid  increase  of  sexual  vice  and 
of  erotic  disorderliness.  But  to  fancy  that  the  libera- 
tion of  women  and  the  protection  of  women  can  be 
furthered  by  the  same  means  is  a  psychological  illusion. 
The  community  which  opens  the  playhouses  to  the 
lure  of  the  new  dramatic  art  may  protect  5  per  cent,  of 
those  who  are  in  danger  to-day,  but  throws  50  per  cent, 
more  into  abysses.  The  feminists  who  see  to  the  depths 
of  their  ideals  ought  to  join  full-heartedly  the  ranks  of 
those  who  entirely  object  to  this  distribution  of  the  in- 
fectious germs  of  sexual  knowledge. 

[451 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
Some  stray  support  may  come  to  the  new  movement 
also  from  another  side.  Some  believe  that  this  great 
emphasis  on  sexual  interests  may  intensify  aesthetic 
longings  in  the  American  commonwealth.  No  doubt 
this  interrelation  exists.  No  civilization  has  known  a 
great  artistic  rise  without  a  certain  freedom  and  joy  in 
sensual  life.  Prudery  always  has  made  true  aesthetic 
unfolding  impossible.  Yet  if  we  yielded  here,  we  would 
again  be  pushed  away  from  our  real  problem.  The 
aesthetic  enthusiast  might  think  it  a  blessing  for  the 
American  nation  if  a  great  aesthetic  outburst  were  se- 
cured, even  by  the  ruin  of  moral  standards :  a  wonderful 
blossoming  of  fascinating  flowers  from  a  swampy  soil 
in  an  atmosphere  full  of  moral  miasmas.  To  be  sure, 
even  then  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  any  success  could 
be  hoped  for,  as  a  lightness  in  sexual  matters  may  be  a 
symptom  of  an  artistic  age,  but  surely  is  not  its  cause. 
The  artist  may  love  to  drink,  but  the  drink  does  not 
make  an  artist.  An  aesthetic  community  may  reach 
its  best  when  it  is  freed  from  sexual  censorship,  but 
throwing  the  censor  out  of  the  house  would  not  add 
anything  to  the  aesthetic  inspiration  of  a  society  which 
is  instinctively  indifferent  to  the  artistic  calling. 
Above  all,  the  question  for  us  is  not  whether  the  sexual 
overeducation  may  have  certain  pleasant  side  effects: 

[461 


SEX  EDUCATION 

we  ask  only  how  far  it  succeeds  in  its  intended  chief 
effect  of  improving  morally  the  social  community. 

In  fact,  neither  feminism  nor  eestheticism  could 
have  secured  this  indulgence  of  the  community  in  the 
new  movement,  if  one  more  direct  argument  had  not 
influenced  the  conviction  of  some  of  our  leaders.  They 
reason  around  one  central  thought  —  namely,  that  the 
old  policy  of  silence,  in  which  they  grew  up,  has  been 
tried  and  has  shown  itself  unsuccessful.  The  horrible 
dimensions  which  the  social  evil  has  taken,  the  ruinous 
effects  on  family  life  and  national  health,  are  before  us. 
The  old  policy  must  therefore  be  wrong.  Let  us  try 
.with  all  our  might  the  reform,  however  disgusting  its 
first  appearance  may  be.  This  surely  is  the  virile 
argument  of  men  who  know  what  they  are  aiming  at. 
And  yet  it  is  based  on  fundamental  psychological  mis- 
apprehensions. It  is  a  great  confusion  of  causes  and 
effects.  The  misery  has  this  distressing  form  not 
on  account  of  the  policy  of  silence,  but  hi  spite 
of  it,  or  rather  it  took  the  tremendous  dimensions 
of  to-day  at  the  same  time  that  the  dam  of  silence 
was  broken  and  the  flood  of  sexual  gossip  rushed 
in. 

We  find  exactly  this  relation  throughout  the  history 
of  civilized  mankind.  To  be  sure,  some  editorial  writ- 

[47] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
ers  behave  as  if  the  erotic  calamity  of  the  day  were 
something  unheard  of,  and  as  if  it  demanded  a  new 
remedy.  The  historical  retrospect  leaves  no  doubt 
that  periods  of  sexual  tension  and  of  sexual  relaxation, 
of  hysteric  erotic  excitement  and  of  a  certain  cool  in- 
difference have  alternated  throughout  thousands  of 
years.  And  whenever  an  age  was  unusually  immoral 
and  lascivious,  it  was  always  also  a  period  in  which 
under  the  mask  of  scientific  interest  or  social  frankness 
or  aesthetic  openmindedness  the  sexual  problems  were 
matters  of  freest  discussion.  The  periods  of  aus- 
terity and  restraint,  on  the  other  hand,  were  always 
characterized  also  by  an  unwillingness  to  talk  about 
sexual  relations  and  to  show  them  in  their  animal  nak- 
edness. Antiquity  knew  those  ups  and  downs,  medi- 
aeval times  knew  them,  and  in  modern  centuries  the 
fluctuations  have  been  still  more  rapid.  As  soon  as  a 
moral  age  with  its  policy  of  silence  is  succeeded  by  an 
immoral  age,  it  is  certainly  a  very  easy  historical  mis- 
construction to  say  that  the  immorality  resulted  from 
the  preceding  conspiracy  of  silence  and  that  the  im- 
morality would  disappear  if  the  opposite  scheme  of 
frankest  speech  were  adopted.  But  the  fact  that  this 
argument  is  accepted  and  that  the  overwhelming  ma- 
jority hails  the  new  regime  with  enthusiasm  is  nothing 

[48] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

but  an  almost  essential  part  of  the  new  period,  which 
has  succeeded  the  time  of  modesty. 

Sexual  discussion  and  sexual  immorality  have  always 
been  parts  of  one  circle;  sexual  silence  and  moral  re- 
straint form  another  circle.  The  change  from  one  to 
the  other  has  come  in  the  history  of  mankind,  usually 
through  new  conditions  of  life,  and  the  primary  factor 
has  not  been  any  policy  of  keeping  quiet  in  respect  or 
of  gossiping  in  curiosity,  but  the  starting  point  has 
generally  been  a  change  in  the  life  habits.  When  new 
wealth  has  come  to  a  people  with  new  liberties  and  new 
desires  for  enjoyment,  the  great  periods  of  sexual  fri- 
volity have  started  and  brought  secondarily  the  dis- 
cussions of  sex  problems,  which  intensified  the  immoral 
life.  On  the  other  hand,  when  a  nation  in  the  richness 
of  its  life  has  been  brought  before  new  great  responsi- 
bilities, great  social  earthquakes  and  revolutions,  great 
wars  for  national  honour,  or  great  new  intellectual  or 
religious  ideals,  then  the  sexual  tension  has  been  re- 
leased, the  attention  has  been  withdrawn  from  the 
frivolous  concerns,  and  the  people  have  settled  down 
soberly  to  a  life  of  modesty  and  morality,  which  brought 
with  it  as  a  natural  consequence  the  policy  of  reverence 
and  silence.  The  new  situation  in  America,  and  to  a 
certain  degree  all  over  the  world,  has  come  in,  too,  not 

[49] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
through  the  silence  of  the  preceding  generation,  but 
by  the  sudden  change  from  agricultural  to  industrial 
life,  with  its  gigantic  cumulation  of  capital,  with  its 
widespread  new  wealth,  with  its  new  ideas  of  social 
liberty,  with  its  fading  religion,  with  its  technical  won- 
ders of  luxury  and  comfort.  This  new  age,  which 
takes  its  orders  from  Broadway  with  its  cabarets  and 
tango  dances,  must  ridicule  the  silence  of  our  fathers 
and  denounce  it  as  a  conspiracy.  It  needs  the  sexual 
discussions,  as  it  craves  the  lurid  music  and  the 
sensual  dances,  until  finally  even  the  most  earnest 
energies,  those  of  social  reform  and  of  hygiene,  of 
intellectual  culture  and  of  artistic  effort,  are  forced 
into  the  service  of  this  antimoral  fashion. 

Some  sober  spectators  argue  that  as  things  have  gone 
to  this  extent,  it  might  be  wise  to  try  the  new  policy  as 
an  experiment,  because  matters  cannot  become  worse 
than  they  are  to-day.  But  those  who  yield  to  the  new  ad- 
vice so  readily  ought  again  to  look  into  the  pages  of 
history,  or  ought  at  least  to  study  the  situation  in  some 
other  countries  before  they  proclaim  that  the  climax 
has  been  reached.  It  may  be  true  that  it  would  not  be 
possible  to  transform  still  more  New  York  hotels  into 
dancing  halls,  since  the  innovation  of  this  fashion,  which 
suggests  the  dancing  epidemics  of  mediaeval  times,  has 

[50] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

reached  practically  every  fashionable  hostelry.  Yet 
we  may  be  only  at  the  beginning,  as  in  this  vicious  circle 
of  craving  for  sensual  life  and  talking  about  sexual  prob- 
lems the  erotic  transformation  of  the  whole  social  be- 
haviour is  usually  a  rapid  one.  The  Rococo  age 
reached  many  subtleties,  which  we  do  not  dream  of  as 
yet,  but  to  which  the  conspiracy  against  silence  may 
boldly  push  us.  Read  the  memoirs  of  Casanova,  the 
Italian  of  the  eighteenth  century,  whose  biography 
gives  a  vivid  picture  of  a  time  ir  which  certainly  no  one 
was  silent  on  sexual  affairs  and  in  which  life  was  essen- 
tially a  chain  of  gallant  adventures;  even  the  sexual 
diseases  figured  as  gallant  diseases.  In  the  select 
American  circles  it  is  already  noticeable  that  the  favour- 
ites of  rich  men  get  a  certain  social  acknowledgment. 
The  great  masses  have  not  reached  this  stage  at  pres- 
ent, which  is,  of  course,  very  familiar  in  France.  But  if 
we  proceed  in  that  rapid  rhythm  with  which  we  have 
changed  in  the  last  ten  years,  ten  years  hence  we  may 
have  substituted  the  influence  of  mistresses  for  the 
influence  of  Tammany  grafters,  and  twenty  years  hence 
a  Madame  Pompadour  may  be  dwelling  not  far  from 
the  White  House  and  controlling  the  fate  of  the  nation 
with  her  small  hands,  as  she  did  for  two  decades  when 
Louis  XV  was  king.  History  has  sufficiently  shown 

[51] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
that  these  are  the  logical  consequences  of  the  sensuali- 
zation  of  a  rich  people,  whose  mind  is  filled  with  sexual 
problems.  Are  we  to  wait,  too,  until  a  great  revolution 
or  a  great  war  shakes  the  nation  to  its  depths  and  ham- 
mers new  ideas  of  morality  into  its  conscience?  Even 
our  literature  might  sink  still  deeper  and  deeper.  If  we 
begin  with  the  sexual  problem,  it  lies  in  its  very  nature 
that  that  which  is  interesting  to-day  is  to-morrow  stale, 
and  new  regions  of  sexuality  must  be  opened.  The 
fiction  of  Germany  in  the  last  few  years  shows  the  whole 
pathetic  decadence  which  results.  The  most  abstruse 
perversions,  the  ugliest  degenerations  of  sexual  sinful- 
ness,  have  become  the  favourite  topics,  and  the  best 
sellers  are  books  which  in  the  previous  age  would  have 
been  crushed  by  police  and  public  opinion  alike,  but 
which  in  the  present  time  are  excused  under  scientific 
and  sociological  pretences,  although  they  are  more  cor- 
rupt and  carry  more  infection  than  any  diseases  against 
which  they  warn. 

VII 

What  is  to  be  done?  In  one  point  we  all  agree :  Those 
who  are  called  to  do  so  must  bend  their  utmost  energy 
toward  the  purification  of  the  outer  forms  of  com- 
munity life  and  of  the  public  institutions.  Certain 

[52] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

eugenic  ideas  must  be  carried  through  relentlessly; 
above  all,  the  sexual  segregation  of  the  feeble-minded, 
whose  progeny  fills  the  houses  of  disorder  and  the  ranks 
of  the  prostitutes.  The  hospitals  must  be  wide  open 
for  every  sexual  disease,  and  all  discrimination  against 
diseases  which  may  be  acquired  by  sexual  intercourse 
must  be  utterly  given  up  in  order  to  stamp  out  this 
scourge  of  mankind,  as  far  as  possible,  with  the  medical 
knowledge  of  our  day.  Every  effort  must  be  made  to 
suppress  places  through  which  unclean  temptations  are 
influencing  the  youth.  Parents  and  doctors  should 
speak  in  the  intimacy  of  private  talk  earnest  words  of 
warning.  The  fight  against  police  corruption  and  graft 
must  be  relentlessly  carried  on  so  as  to  have  the  viola- 
tion of  the  laws  really  punished. 

Many  means  may  still  seem  debatable  among  those 
who  know  the  social  and  medical  facts.  Certainly  some 
of  the  eugenic  postulates  go  too  far.  It  is,  for  instance, 
extremely  difficult  to  say  where  the  limit  is  to  be  set 
for  permissible  marriages.  There  may  be  no  doubt 
that  feeble-mindedness  ought  not  to  be  transmitted  to 
the  next  generation,  but  have  we  really  a  right  to  pre- 
vent the  marriage  of  epileptics  or  psychasthenics? 
Can  we  be  surprised  then  that  others  already  begin  to 
demand  that  neurasthenics  shall  not  marry?  Even  the 

[53] 


\ 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 

health  certificate  at  the  wedding  may  give  only  an  il- 
lusion of  safety,  as  the  health  of  too  many  marriages 
is  destroyed  by  the  escapades  of  the  husband,  and  it  may, 
on  the  other  hand,  lead  to  a  narrowing  down  under  the 
pressure  of  arbitrary  theories,  producing  a  true  race 
suicide.  The  question  whether  the  healthy  man  is 
the  only  desirable  element  of  the  community  is  one 
which  allows  different  answers.  Much  of  the  great- 
est work  for  the  world's  progress  has  been  created 
by  men  with  faulty  animal  constitutions  whose  parents 
would  never  have  received  permission  to  marry  from 
a  rigorous  eugenic  board. 

But  whatever  the  sociological  reasons  for  hesitation 
may  be,  the  state  legislators  and  physicians,  the  police 
officers  and  social  workers  have  no  right  to  stop.  They 
must  push  forward  and  force  the  public  life  into  paths  of 
less  injurious  and  less  dangerous  sexual  habits  and  cus- 
toms. Their  success  will  depend  upon  the  energy  with 
which  they  keep  themselves  independent  of  the  con- 
trol of  those  who  do  not  count  with  realities.  The  hope 
that  men  will  become  sexually  abstinent  outside  mar- 
ried life  is  fantastic,  and  the  book  of  history  ought 
not  to  have  been  written  in  vain.  Any  counting  on 
this  imaginary  overcoming  of  selfish  desire  for  sex- 
ual satisfaction  decreases  the  chances  of  real  hy- 

[54] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

gienic  reform.  It  would  even  be  an  inexcusable 
hypocrisy  of  the  medical  profession  if,  with  its  consent, 
one  group  of  specialists  behave  as  if  sexual  abstinence 
were  the  bodily  ideal,  while  thousands  of  no  less  con- 
scientious physicians  in  the  world,  especially  those  con- 
cerned with  nervous  diseases,  feel  again  and  again 
obliged  to  advise  sexual  intercourse  for  then*  patients. 
We  know  to-day,  even  much  better  than  ten  years  ago, 
how  many  serious  disturbances  result  from  the  suppres- 
sion of  normal  sexual  life.  The  past  has  shown,  more- 
over, that  when  society  succeeded  in  spreading  alarm 
and  in  decreasing  prostitution  by  fear,  the  result  was 
such  a  rapid  increase  of  perversion  and  nerve-racking 
self-abuse  that  after  a  short  while  the  normal  ways  were 
again  preferred  as  the  lesser  evil. 

And  the  reformers  will  need  a  second  limitation  of 
then-  efforts.  They  cannot  hope  for  success  as  long  as 
they  fancy  that  reasoning  and  calculation  and  sober 
balancing  of  dangers  and  joys,  of  injuries  and  advan- 
tages, can  ever  be  the  decisive  factor  of  progress.  They 
ought  not  to  forget  that  as  soon  as  this  whole  problem 
is  brought  down  to  a  mere  considering  of  consequences 
by  the  individual,  their  eugenic  hopes  may  be  cruelly 
shaken.  However  distressing  it  is  to  say  it  frankly,  by 
mere  appeal  to  reason  we  shall  not  turn  many  girls 

[551 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
from  the  way  which  leads  to  prostitution,  nor  many  boys 
from  the  anticipation  of  married  life.  The  girl  in  the 
factory,  who  hesitates  between  the  hard  work  at  the 
machine  for  the  smallest  pay,  without  pleasures,  and  the 
easy  money  of  the  street,  with  an  abundance  of  fun,  may 
in  the  regrettable  life  of  prosaic  reality  balance  the  con- 
sequences very  differently  from  the  moralist.  She  has 
discovered  that  the  ideal  of  virtue  is  not  so  highly  valued 
in  her  circles  as  in  the  middle  classes.  The  loss  of  her 
virtue  is  not  such  a  severe  hindrance  in  her  life,  and 
even  if  she  yields  for  a  while  to  earn  her  extra  money  in 
indecent  ways,  the  chances  are  great  that  she  may  re- 
main more  attractive  to  a  possible  future  husband  from 
her  set  than  if  she  lived  the  depressing  life  of  grief  and 
deprivation.  The  probability  of  her  marrying  and  be- 
coming the  mother  in  a  decent  family  home  may  be 
greater  than  on  the  straighter  path.  It  is,  of  course, 
extremely  sad  that  reality  takes  such  an  immoral  way, 
but  just  here  is  the  field  where  the  reformers  ought  to 
keep  their  eyes  wide  open,  instead  of  basing  their  appeals 
on  illusory  constructions  about  social  conditions  which 
do  not  exist.  And  if  the  boys  begin  to  reason,  their 
calculations  may  count  on  a  still  greater  probability  of 
good  outcome,  if  they  indulge  in  their  pleasures.  More 
than  that,  the  fate  of  certain  European  countries  shows 

[56] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

that  when  it  comes  to  this  clear  reasoning,  the  great 
turn  of  the  selfish  man  is  from  the  dangerous  prostitute 
to  the  clean  girl  or  married  woman,  to  the  sisters  and 
wives  of  his  friends,  and  that  means  the  true  ruin  of 
home  life. 

What  is  the  consequence  of  all?  That  the  fight  ought 
to  be  given  up?  Surely  not.  But  that  instead  of  rely- 
ing on  physical  conditions,  on  fear  of  diseases,  on  merely 
eugenic  improvements  and  on  clever  reasoning,  the  re- 
form must  come  from  within,  must  be  one  of  education 
and  morality,  must  be  controlled,  not  by  bacteriology, 
but  by  ethics,  must  find  its  strength  not  from  horror  of 
skin  diseases,  but  in  the  reverence  for  the  ideal  values  of 
humanity. 

VIII 

We  must  not  deceive  ourselves  as  to  the  gravity  of 
the  problem.  It  is  not  one  of  the  passing  questions 
which  are  replaced  next  season  by  new  ones.  State 
laws  and  interstate  laws  may  and  ought  to  continue  to 
round  off  some  of  the  sharp  edges,  institutions  and  asso- 
ciations may  and  ought  to  succeed  in  diminishing  some 
of  the  misery,  but  the  central  problem  of  national  policy 
in  the  treatment  of  the  youth  will  stay  with  us  until  it 
has  been  solved  rightly;  illustrative  instruction  cannot 

[57] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
be  such  a  solution.  We  must  see  with  open  eyes  where 
we  are  standing.  The  American  nation  of  to-day  is  no 
longer  the  America  of  yesterday.  The  puritanism 
which  certainly  was  a  spirit  of  restraint  has  gone  and 
cannot  be  brought  back.  The  new  wealth  and  power, 
the  influx  of  sensuous  South  European  and  East  Euro- 
pean elements,  the  general  trend  of  our  age  all  over 
the  civilized  world,  with  its  technical  comfort  and 
its  inexpensive  luxuries,  the  receding  of  religion  and 
many  more  factors,  have  given  a  new  face  to  America 
in  the  last  fifteen  years.  A  desire  for  the  satisfaction  of 
the  senses,  a  longing  for  amusements,  has  become  pre- 
dominant in  thousandfold  shades  from  the  refined  to  the 
vulgar.  In  such  self-seeking  periods  the  sexual  desire 
in  its  masked  and  its  unmasked  forms  gains  steadily  in 
importance  and  fascination. 

America,  moreover,  is  in  a  particularly  difficult  situa- 
tion. This  new  longing  for  joy,  even  with  its  erotic 
touch,  brings  with  it  many  valuable  enrichments  of 
every  national  life,  not  least  among  them  the  spreading 
of  the  sense  of  beauty.  But  what  is  needed  is  a  whole- 
some national  self-control  by  which  an  antisocial  growth 
of  these  emotions  will  be  suppressed.  Our  present-day 
American  life  so  far  lacks  these  conditions  for  the  truly 
harmonious  organization  of  the  new  tendencies.  There 

[58] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

are  many  causes  for  it.  The  long  puritanic  past  did 
not  allow  that  slow  European  training  in  aesthetic 
and  harmless  social  enjoyments.  Moreover,  the  wide- 
spread wealth,  the  feeling  of  democratic  equality,  the 
faintness  of  truly  artistic  interests  in  the  masses,  all 
reinforce  the  craving  for  the  mere  tickling  of  the  senses, 
for  amusement  of  the  body,  for  vaudeville  on  the  stage 
and  in  life.  The  sexual  element  in  this  wave  of  enjoy- 
ment becomes  reinforced  by  the  American  position  of 
the  woman  outside  of  the  family  circle.  Her  contact 
with  men  has  been  multiplied,  her  right  to  seek  joy  in 
every  possible  way  has  become  the  corollary  of  her  new 
independence,  her  position  has  become  more  exposed 
and  more  dangerous.  And  in  addition  to  all  this,  the 
chief  factor,  which  alone  would  be  sufficient  to  give  to  the 
situation  a  threatening  aspect:  American  educational- 
ists do  not  believe  in  discipline.  As  long  as  the  com- 
munity was  controlled  by  the  moral  influence  of 
puritanism,  the  lack  of  training  in  subordination  under 
social  authority  and  obedient  discipline  was  without 
danger,  while  it  strengthened  the  spirit  of  political 
liberty.  But  to-day,  in  the  period  of  the  new  anti- 
puritanic  life,  the  lack  of  discipline  in  education  means 
an  actual  threat  to  the  social  safety. 

In  such  a  situation  what  can  be  more  fraught  with 
[59] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
dangers  than  to  abolish  the  policy  of  silence  and  to  up- 
hold the  policy  of  talking  and  talking  about  sexual 
matters  with  those  whose  minds  were  still  untouched  by 
the  lure.  It  means  to  fill  the  atmosphere  in  which  the 
growing  adolescent  moves  with  sultry  ideas,  it  means 
to  distort  the  view  of  the  social  surroundings,  it  means 
to  stir  up  the  sexual  desires  and  to  teach  children  how 
to  indulge  hi  them  without  immediate  punishment. 
Just  as  in  a  community  of  graft  and  corruption  the  in- 
dividual soon  loses  the  finer  feeling  for  honesty,  and 
crime  flourishes  simply  because  every  one  knows  that 
nobody  expects  anything  better,  so  in  a  community  in 
which  sexual  problems  are  the  lessons  of  the  youth  and 
the  dinner  talk  of  the  adult,  the  feeling  of  respect  for 
man's  deepest  emotions  fades  away.  Man  and  woman 
lose  the  instinctive  shyness  in  touching  on  this  sacred 
ground,  and  as  the  organic  desires  push  and  push  to- 
ward it,  the  youth  soon  discovers  that  the  barriers  to 
the  forbidden  ground  are  removed  and  that  in  their 
place  stands  a  simple  signal  with  a  suggestive  word  of 
warning  against  some  easily  avoided  traps. 

From  a  psychological  point  of  view  the  right  policy 
would  be  to  reduce  the  external  temptations,  above  all, 
the  opportunities  for  contact.  Coeducation,  for  in- 
stance, was  morally  without  difficulties  twenty  years 

[60] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

ago,  but  it  is  unfit  in  high  schools  and  colleges  for  the 
eastern  part  of  the  nation  in  the  atmosphere  of  to-day. 
Moreover,  the  aesthetic  spirit  ought  to  be  educated 
systematically,  and  above  all,  the  whole  education  of 
the  youth  ought  to  be  built  on  discipline;  the  lesson  by 
which  the  youth  learns  to  overcome  the  desire  and  to 
inhibit  the  will  is  the  most  essential  for  the  young 
American  of  to-morrow.  The  policy  of  silence  has 
never  meant  that  a  girl  should  grow  up  without  the 
consciousness  that  the  field  of  sexual  facts  exists  in  our 
social  world;  on  the  contrary,  those  feelings  of  shame 
and  decency  which  belong  to  the  steady  learning  of  a 
clean  child  from  the  days  of  the  nursery  have  strongly 
impressed  on  the  young  soul  that  such  regions  are  real, 
but  that  they  must  not  be  approached  by  curiosity  or 
self-seeking  wilfulness.  This  instinct  itself  brought 
something  of  ideal  value,  of  respect  and  even  of  rever- 
ence into  the  most  trivial  life,  however  often  it  be- 
came ruined  by  foul  companionship.  To  strengthen 
this  instinctive  emotion  of  mysterious  respect,  which 
makes  the  young  mind  shrink  from  brutal  intrusion,  will 
remain  the  wisest  policy,  as  long  as  we  cannot  change 
that  automatic  mechanism  of  human  nature  by  which 
the  sexual  thought  stimulates  the  sexual  organs.  The 
masses  are,  of  course,  in  favour  of  the  opposite  pro- 

[61] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
gramme,  which  is  in  itself  only  another  symptom  of  the 
erotic  atmosphere  into  which  the  new  antipuritanic 
nation  has  come.  That  mechanism  of  the  nervous 
system  furnishes  them  a  pleasant  excitement  when  they 
read  and  hear  the  discussions  and  plays  which  bristle 
with  sexual  instruction.  The  magazines  which,  with 
the  best  intentions,  fight  for  the  new  policy,  easily  find 
millions  of  readers;  the  plays  with  their  erotic  overflow 
and  the  moral  ending  are  crowded,  and  mostly  by  those 
who  hardly  need  the  instruction  any  longer.  A  nation 
which  tries  to  lift  its  sexual  morality  by  dragging  the 
sexual  problems  to  the  street  for  the  inspection  of  the 
crowd,  without  shyness  and  without  shame,  and  which 
wilfully  makes  them  objects  of  gossip  and  stage  enter- 
tainment, is  doing  worse  than  Munchausen  when  he  tried 
to  lift  himself  by  his  scalp.  It  seems  less  important 
that  the  youth  learn  the  secrets  of  sexual  intercourse 
than  that  their  teachers  and  guardians  learn  the  ele- 
ments of  physiological  psychology;  the  sexual  sins  of 
the  youth  start  from  the  educational  sins  of  the  elders. 

It  is  easy  to  say,  as  the  social  reformers  and  the  vice 
commissioners  and  the  sex  instructors  and  many  others 
have  repeated  in  ever  new  forms,  that  "all  children's 
questions  should  be  answered  truthfully,"  and  to  work 
up  the  whole  sermon  to  the  final  trumpet  call,  "The 

[621 


SEX  EDUCATION 

truth  shall  make  you  free."  Yet  this  is  entirely  usele'ss 
as  long  as  we  have  not  denned  what  we  mean  by  free- 
dom, and  above  all  what  we  mean  by  truth.  If  the 
child  enjoys  the  beautiful  softness  of  the  butterfly's 
coloured  wing,  it  is  surely  a  truth,  if  we  teach  him  that 
seen  under  the  microscope  in  reality  there  is  no  softness 
there,  but  large  ugly  bumps  and  hollows  and  that  the 
beautiful  impression  is  nothing  but  an  illusion.  But 
is  this  truth  of  the  microscope  the  only  truth,  and  is 
science  the  only  truth,  and  is  there  ever  only  one  truth 
about  the  concrete  facts  of  reality?  Does  truth  in  this 
sense  not  simply  mean  a  certain  order  into  which  we 
bring  our  experience  in  the  service  of  certain  purposes 
of  thought?  We  may  approach  the  chaos  of  life  ex- 
perience with  different  purposes,  and  led  by  any  one  of 
them  we  may  reach  that  consistent  unity  of  ideas  for 
the  limited  outlook  which  we  call  truth.  The  chemist 
has  a  right  to  consider  everything  in  the  world  as  chem- 
ical substances,  and  the  mathematician  may  take  the 
same  things  as  geometric  objects.  And  yet  he  who 
seeks  a  meaning  in  these  thirgs  and  a  value  and  an 
inner  development  may  come  to  another  kind  of  truth. 
Only  a  general  philosophy  of  life  can  ultimately  grade 
and  organize  those  various  relative  truths  and  combine 
them  in  an  all-embracing  unity. 

[63] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
No  doubt  the  physician's  scientific  discoveries  and 
observations  are  perfectly  true.  Man  is  an  animal,  and 
anatomical  and  physiological  conditions  control  his 
existence,  and  if  we  want  to  understand  this  animal's 
life  and  want  to  keep  it  healthy,  we  have  to  ask  for  the 
truth  of  the  physician.  But  shame  upon  him  who 
wants  to  educate  youth  toward  the  view  that  man  as  an 
animal  is  the  true  man!  If  we  educate  at  all,  we  edu- 
cate in  the  service  of  culture  and  civilization.  All 
building  up  of  the  youthful  mind  is  itself  service  to 
human  progress.  But  this  human  progress  is  not  a 
mere  growth  of  the  animal  race.  It  has  its  total  mean- 
ing in  the  understanding  of  man  as  a  soul,  determined 
by  purposes  and  ideals.  Not  the  laws  of  physiology, 
but  the  demands  of  logic,  ethics,  aesthetics,  and  religion 
control  the  man  who  makes  history  and  who  serves 
civilization.  He  who  says  that  the  child's  questions 
ought  to  be  answered  truthfully  means  in  this  connec- 
tion that  lowest  truth  of  all,  the  truth  of  physiology, 
and  forgets  that  when  he  opens  too  early  the  mind  of 
the  boy  and  the  girl  to  this  materialistic  truth  he  at  the 
same  time  closes  it,  and  closes  it  perhaps  forever,  to 
that  richer  truth  in  which  man  is  understood  as  historic 
being,  as  agent  for  the  good  and  true  and  beautiful  and 
eternal. 

[64] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

Give  to  the  child  the  truth,  but  that  truth  which 
makes  life  worth  living,  that  truth  which  teaches  him 
that  life  is  a  task  and  a  duty,  and  that  his  true  health 
and  soundness  and  value  will  depend  upon  the  energy 
with  which  he  makes  the  world  and  his  own  body  with 
its  selfish  desires  subservient  to  unselfish  ideals.  If  you 
mean  by  the  truth  that  half-truth  of  man  as  a  sexual 
creature  of  flesh  and  nerves,  the  child  to  whom  you 
offer  it  will  be  led  to  ever  new  questions,  and  if  you  go 
on  answering  them  truthfully  as  the  new  fashion  sug- 
gests, your  reservoir  will  soon  be  emptied,  even  if  the 
six  volumes  of  Havelock  Ellis'  "Psychology  of  Sex"  are 
fully  at  your  disposal.  But  the  more  this  species  of 
truth  is  given  out,  the  more  life  itself,  for  which  you 
educate  the  child,  will  appear  to  him  unworthy  and 
meaningless.  If  the  truth  of  civilized  life  is  merely 
that  which  natural  science  can  analyze,  then  life  has 
lost  its  honour  and  its  loyalty,  its  enthusiasm  and  its 
value.  He  who  sees  the  truth  in  the  idealistic  aspect  of 
man  will  not  necessarily  evade  the  curious  question  of 
the  child  who  is  puzzled  about  the  naturalistic  processes 
around  him.  But  instead  of  whetting  his  appetite 
for  unsavoury  knowledge,  he  will  seriously  influence 
the  young  mind  to  turn  the  attention  into  the  opposite 
direction.  He  will  speak  to  him  about  the  fact  that 

[651 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 

y» 

there  is  something  animal-like  in  the  human  being,  but 
will  add  that  the  true  values  of  life  lie  just  in  overcoming 
the  low  instincts  in  the  interest  of  high  aims.  He  will 
point  to  those  hidden  naturalistic  realities  as  something 
not  overimportant,  but  as  something  which  a  clean 
boy  and  girl  do  not  ask  about  and  with  which  only  the 
imagination  of  bad  companions  is  engaged.  An  in- 
stinctive indifference  and  aversion  to  the  contact  with 
anything  low  and  impure  can  easily  be  developed  in 
every  healthy  child  amid  clean  surroundings.  Why  is  the 
boy  to  h've  and  to  die  for  the  honour  of  his  country? 
Why  is  he  to  devote  himself  to  the  search  for  knowl- 
edge? Why  is  he  to  fight  for  the  growth  of  morality? 
Why  does  he  not  confine  himself  to  mere  seeking  for 
comfort  and  ease  and  satisfaction  of  the  senses?  All 
which  really  creates  civilization  and  human  progress 
depends  upon  symbols  and  belief.  As  soon  as  we  make 
all  those  symbols  of  the  historic  community,  all  the 
ideals  of  honour  and  devotion,  righteousness  and  beauty, 
glory  and  faithfulness,  mere  matters  of  scientific  calcula- 
tion, they  stare  us  in  the  face  as  sheer  absurdities;  and 
yet  we  might  again  misname  that  as  truth.  Then  it  is 
the  untruth  which  makes  us  free,  it  is  the  non-scientific, 
humanistic  aspect  which  liberates  us  from  the  slavery 
of  our  low  desires. 

[66] 


SEX  EDUCATION 

Certainly  there  will  always  be  some  wild  boys  and 
girls  in  the  school  who  try  to  spread  filthy  knowledge, 
but  if  the  atmosphere  is  filled  with  respect  and  rever- 
ence, and  the  minds  are  trained  by  inner  discipline  and 
morality,  the  contagion  of  such  mischievous  talk  will 
reach  only  those  children  who  have  the  disposition  of  the 
degenerate.  The  majority  will  remain  uncontami- 
nated.  Plenty  of  lewd  literature  in  the  circulars  of  the 
quacks  and  even  in  the  sensational  newspapers  will 
reach  their  eye  and  their  brain,  and  yet  it  will  leave  not 
the  slightest  trace.  The  trained,  clean  mind  develops 
a  moral  antitoxin  which  at  every  pulsebeat  of  life  de- 
stroys the  poisonous  toxins  produced  by  the  germs  which 
enter  the  system.  The  red  lanterns  will  never  be  en- 
tirely extinguished  in  any  large  city  the  world  over,  but 
the  boy  who  has  developed  a  sense  of  respect  and  rev- 
erence and  an  instinctive  desire  for  moral  cleanliness 
and  a  power  to  overcome  selfish  impulses,  will  pass  them 
by  and  forget  them  when  he  comes  to  the  next  street 
corner.  But  the  other,  whose  imagination  has  been 
filled  with  a  shameless  truth  and  who  receives  as  his 
protection  merely  a  warning  which  appeals  to  his  fear 
of  diseases,  may  pass  that  red  lantern  entrance  at  first, 
but  at  the  next  block  his  tainted  imagination  will  have 
overcome  the  fear,  and  with  the  reckless  confidence  that 

[67] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
he  will  know  how  to  protect  himself  and  that  he  will 
have  good  luck  he,  too,  like  the  moth,  will  feel  at- 
tracted toward  the  red  light  and  will  turn  back.  We 
can  prohibit  alcohol,  but  we  cannot  prohibit  the  stimu- 
lus to  sexual  lust.  It  is  always  present,  and  the  selfish 
desire,  made  rampant  by  a  society  which  craves  amuse- 
ment, will  always  be  stronger  than  any  social  argument 
or  any  talk  of  possible  individual  danger.  The  only 
effective  check  is  the  deep  inner  respect,  and  we  must 
teach  it  to  the  youth,  or  the  whole  nation  will  have  to 
be  taught  it  soon  by  the  sterner  discipline  of  history. 
The  genius  of  mankind  cannot  be  deceived  by  philistine 
phrases  about  the  conspiracy  of  silence.  The  decision 
to  be  silent  was  a  solemn  pledge  to  the  historic  spirit  of 
human  progress,  which  demands  its  symbols,  its  con- 
ventions, and  its  beliefs.  To  destroy  the  harvest  of 
these  ideal  values,  because  some  weeds  have  grown  up 
with  them,  by  breaking  down  the  dams  and  allowing 
the  flood  of  truth-talk  to  burst  in  is  the  great  psy- 
chological crime  of  our  day.  There  is  only  one  hope 
and  salvation :  let  us  build  up  the  dam  again  to  protect 
our  field  for  a  better  to-morrow. 


[68] 


SOCIALISM 


II 

SOCIALISM 

THE  history  of  socialism  has  been  a  history  of  false 
prophecies.  Socialism  started  with  a  sure  conviction 
that  under  the  conditions  of  modern  industry  the  work- 
ing class  must  be  driven  into  worse  and  worse  misery. 
In  reality  the  development  has  gone  the  opposite  way. 
There  are  endlessly  more  workingmen  with  a  comfort- 
able income  than  ever  before.  The  prophets  also  knew 
surely  that  the  wealth  from  manufacturing  enterprises 
would  be  concentrated  with  fewer  and  fewer  men,  while 
history  has  taken  the  opposite  turn  and  has  distributed 
the  shares  of  the  industrial  companies  into  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  hands.  Other  prophecies  foretold  the  end 
of  the  small  farmer,  still  others  the  uprooting  of  the 
middle  class,  others  gave  the  date  for  the  great  crash; 
and  everything  would  have  come  out  exactly  as  the 
prophets  foresaw  it,  if  they  had  not  forgotten  to  con- 
sider many  other  factors  in  the  social  situation  which 
gave  to  the  events  a  very  different  turn.  But  it  may  be 

[71] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
acknowledged  that  the  wrong  prophesying  was  done 
not  only  by  the  socialists,  but  no  less  by  the  spectators. 
I  myself  have  to  confess  my  guilt.  Many  years  ago 
when  I  wrote  my  German  book  on  "The  Americans,"  I 
declared  with  the  ringing  voice  of  the  prophet  that 
socialism  would  never  take  hold  of  America.  It  was  so 
easy  to  show  that  its  chief  principles  and  fundamental 
doctrines  were  directly  opposed  to  the  deepest  creeds  of 
Americanism  and  that  the  whole  temper  of  the  popula- 
tion was  necessarily  averse  to  the  anticapitalistic  fan- 
cies. The  individualistic  striving,  the  faith  in  rivalry, 
the  fear  of  centralization,  the  political  liberty,  the  lack 
of  class  barriers  which  makes  it  possible  for  any  one  to 
reach  the  highest  economic  power,  all  work  against 
socialism,  and  all  are  essential  for  American  democracy. 
Above  all,  the  whole  American  life  was  controlled  by 
the  feeling  that  individual  wealth  is  the  measurement  of 
individual  success,  and  even  puritanism  had  an  inter- 
nal affinity  to  capitalism.  Hence  socialism  could  not 
mean  anything  but  an  imported  frill  which  could  not  be 
taken  seriously  by  the  commonwealth.  In  later  edi- 
tions of  the  book  I  modified  my  predictions  slightly, 
and  to-day  I  feel  almost  inclined  to  withdraw  my 
prophecy  entirely. 

To  be  sure,  I  still  think  that  the  deepest  meaning  of 
[72] 


SOCIALISM 

Americanism  and  of  the  American  mission  in  the  world 
is  farther  away  from  socialism  than  the  spirit  of  any 
other  nation.  And  yet  —  I  do  not  say  that  I  fear,  or 
that  I  hope,  but  I  believe  —  socialism  has  in  no 
other  land  at  present  such  good  chances  to  become 
the  policy  of  the  state.  The  country  has  entered  into  a 
career  of  progressive  experiments;  the  traditional  re- 
spect for  the  old  constitutional  system  of  checks  and 
balances  to  the  mere  will  of  the  crowd  has  been  under- 
mined. The  real  legislative  reign  of  the  masses  has 
just  begun  and  it  would  seem  only  natural  that  such  an 
entirely  new  movement  should  be  pushed  forward  by  its 
own  momentum.  If  the  genius  of  America,  which  was 
conservative,  turns  radical,  the  political  machinery 
here  would  be  more  fit  than  that  of  any  other  land  to 
allow  the  enforcement  of  socialism.  This  will  not  come 
to-day  or  to-morrow,  but  that  socialism  may  suddenly 
be  with  us  the  day  after  to-morrow  is  the  possibility 
with  which  the  neutral  observer  must  count.  There  is 
no  need  of  directly  reversing  the  prophecies,  as  there 
are  many  energies  in  the  soul  of  the  nation  which  may 
react  against  this  new  tendency  and  may  automatically 
check  this  un-American  economic  capture.  It  is  a 
fight  with  equal  chances,  and  which  side  will  win  cannot 
be  foreseen.  But  if  socialism  really  has  entered  the 

[73] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
.calm  of  practical  possibilities,  it  becomes  the  duty  of 
everybody  to  study  the  new  demands  from  his  own 
standpoint.  The  nation  must  see  the  facts  from  many 
angles  before  it  can  decide  on  this  tremendous  issue. 
Any  one-sidedness,  whether  in  favour  of  or  against  the 
new  programme,  must  be  dangerous.  In  such  a  situa- 
tion even  the  psychologist  may  be  excused  for  feeling 
tempted  to  contribute  his  little  share  to  the  discussion. 
The  central  problem  of  the  psychologist  would  evi- 
dently lie  in  the  question  whether  the  socialistic  reformer 
calculates  with  right  ideas  about  the  human  mind. 
There  might,  to  be  sure,  be  a  little  psychological  side- 
show not  without  a  peculiar  interest  at  the  entrance 
gate  of  socialism.  We  might  turn  the  question,  what  is 
the  psychology  of  the  socialist,  so  as  to  mean,  not  with 
what  psychology  does  the  socialist  operate,  but  what 
goes  on  in  the  socialist's  mind.  No  doubt  the  motives 
have  gone  through  deep  changes  even  hi  the  mind  of  the 
cultured  leaders.  When  Karl  Marx  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  socialism,  he  was  moved  solely  by  the  desire  to 
recognize  a  necessary  development.  It  was  the  interest 
of  the  theorist.  He  showed  that  the  things  which  the 
socialist  depicted  simply  had  to  come.  He  did  not  ask 
whether  they  are  good  or  bad.  They  were  for  him  ulti- 
mately natural  events  which  were  to  be  forestalled.  The 

[74] 


SOCIALISM 

leaders  to-day  see  it  all  in  a  new  light.  The  socialistic 
state  is  to  them  a  goal  to  the  attainment  of  which  all 
energies  ought  to  be  bent.  Not  their  theoretical  knowl- 
edge, but  their  practical  conscience,  leads  them  to  their 
enthusiasm  for  a  time  without  capitalism.  In  the 
minds  of  the  masses,  however,  who  vote  for  the  social- 
ist here  or  abroad,  the  glory  of  moral  righteousness  is 
somewhat  clouded  by  motives  less  inspiring  in  quality. 
The  animosity  against  the  men  of  wealth  rushes  into  the 
mental  foreground,  and  if  it  is  claimed  that  the  puritans 
disliked  the  bear  baiting  not  because  it  gave  pain  to  the 
bears,  but  because  it  gave  pleasure  to  the  onlookers,  it 
sometimes  seems  as  if  the  socialists,  too,  desire  the 
change,  not  in  order  that  the  poor  gain  more  comfort,  but 
in  order  that  the  rich  be  punished.  And  many  cleaner 
motives  have  mixed  in,  which  resulted  from  the  general 
change  of  conditions.  The  labourer  lives  to-day  in  a 
cultural  atmosphere  which  was  unknown  to  his  grand- 
fathers. He  reads  the  same  newspaper  as  his  employ- 
ers, he  thinks  in  the  same  catch  phrases,  and  has 
essentially  the  same  foundation  of  education.  More- 
over the  publicity  of  our  life  in  this  era  of  print  too 
easily  teaches  the  workingman  that  his  master  may  be 
neither  better  nor  wiser  than  he  and  his  comrades.  And 
finally,  the  political  and  economic  discussions  of  the  last 

[75] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
half  century  have  made  it  perfectly  clear  to  him  that 
the  removing  of  the  material  misery  lies  in  the  realm  of 
practical  possibility,  and  that  even  without  bombs  a 
new  economic  order  may  be  created  almost  as  easily  as 
a  new  tariff  law  or  an  income  tax  or  an  equal  suffrage. 
Hence  it  is  not  surprising  that  all  these  motives  combined 
turn  the  imagination  of  millions  to  the  new  panaceas. 
But  if  low  motives  are  mixed  with  high  ones  in  the 
mind  of  the  champions  of  socialism,  they  certainly  have 
never  stopped  assuring  us  that  it  is  worse  with  their 
opponents.  Marx  himself  declared  passionately  that 
greed  was  the  deepest  spring,  that  "the  most  violent 
and  malignant  passions  of  the  human  breast,  the  furies 
of  private  interest"  are  whipping  men  into  the  battle 
against  socialism.  However  that  may  be,  the  discus- 
sions in  the  clubroom  and  in  the  political  hall  perhaps 
oftener  suggest  a  less  malignant  motive,  a  persistent 
carelessness,  which  keep  the  friends  of  the  capitalistic 
order  from  making  the  effort  really  to  find  out  at  what 
the  socialists  are  aiming.  The  largest  part  of  the  pri- 
vate and  public  accusations  of  socialism  starts  from  the 
conviction  that  socialism  means  that  all  men  must  have 
equal  property,  and  in  consideration  of  the  fact  that 
no  real  socialist  demands  that,  and  that  the  socialists 
have  always  insisted  that  this  is  not  their  intention, 

[76] 


SOCIALISM 

there  indeed  seems  to  be  some  psychology  necessary  to 
understand  why  the  antisocialists  do  not  take  the 
trouble  to  find  out  first  what  socialism  is. 

But  here  we  are  not  engaged  in  the  mental  analysis  of 
those  who  fight  about  socialism.  We  want  rather  to 
ask  whether  the  human  minds  are  rightly  understood 
by  those  who  tell  us  that  socialism  is,  or  is  not,  the  solu- 
tion of  our  social  problems.  And  if  we  turn  to  this 
fundamental  question  whether  socialism  ought  to  be- 
come the  form  of  our  society,  the  chief  thing  will  be  to 
avoid  a  mistake  in  the  discussion  which  pervades  the 
largest  part  of  our  present-day  literature.  The  prob- 
lem is  no  longer,  as  it  was  in  the  childhood  days  of 
socialistic  debate,  whether  the  historical  necessities 
must  bring  socialism.  We  know  that  socialism  will 
come,  if  we  like  it,  and  that  we  can  avoid  it,  if  we  hate 
it,  and  that  everything  therefore  depends  upon  the 
decision  of  the  community  whether  it  wants  to  work  for 
or  against  the  great  economic  revolution.  It  is  thus 
not  a  question  of  facts,  but  of  preferences,  of  judgments, 
of  ideals.  We  do  not  simply  have  to  exchange  wise 
words  as  to  that  which  will  come  anyhow,  but  we  have 
to  make  up  our  mind  whether  it  appears  to  us  desirable 
or  not  desirable,  and  that  means,  whether  it  is  in  har- 
mony with  our  purpose  or  not. 

[771 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
But  this  forces  on  us  as  the  very  first  inquiry:  what 
is  the  purpose  of  our  social  economic  system  to  be? 
Just  here  the  mistake  comes  into  the  debates.  We  hear 
eloquent  orations  about  the  merits  or  demerits  of  social- 
ism, without  any  effort  being  made  to  define  clearly  for 
what  end  it  is  useful  or  useless.  It  is  meaningless  to 
claim  that  socialism  is  good,  if  we  do  not  know  for  what 
it  is  good,  and  the  whole  flippancy  of  the  discussion 
too  often  becomes  apparent  when  we  stop  and  inquire 
what  purposes  the  speaker  wants  to  see  fulfilled. 
We  find  a  wobbling  between  two  very  different  pos- 
sible human  purposes,  with  the  convenient  scheme  of 
exchanging  the  one  for  the  other,  when  the  defender 
gets  into  a  tight  place.  These  two  great  purposes  are 
economic  development  and  human  happiness.  With 
the  gesture  of  high  cultural  inspiration  the  new  scheme 
is  praised  to  us  as  a  way  toward  a  greater  economic 
achievement  by  mankind,  a  fuller  development  of 
human  economic  life.  But  as  soon  as  doubts  are  cast 
on  the  value  of  the  scheme  for  this  noble  purpose,  the 
argument  slips  into  the  other  groove  and  shows  us  that 
socialism  is  wonderful  for  removing  human  misery  and 
bringing  sweet  happiness  to  numberless  men,  women, 
and  children.  According  to  the  same  scheme,  of  course, 
when  we  do  not  feel  convinced  that  socialism  will  be 

[78] 


SOCIALISM 

the  remedy  for  unhappiness,  the  scene  is  changed 
again,  and  we  hear  that  it  will  be  splendid  for  economic 
progress. 

No  one  would  claim  that  the  two  ends  have  nothing 
to  do  with  each  other.  We  might  define  the  progress 
of  economic  life  in  such  a  way  that  the  increase  of 
human  happiness  belongs  within  its  compass.  Or  we 
might  show  that  widespread  human  happiness  would 
be  an  advantageous  condition  for  the  development  of 
economic  civilization.  But  in  any  case  the  two  are  not 
the  same,  and  even  their  intimate  relation  may  appear 
artificial.  To  discuss  the  value  of  a  new  scheme  with- 
out perfectly  clearing  up  and  sharply  discriminating 
the  possible  ends  for  which  it  may  be  valuable,  can 
never  be  helpful  toward  the  fundamental  solution  of  a 
problem.  Nobody  doubts  that  human  progress  is  a 
worthy  aim,  and  no  one  denies  that  human  happiness  is 
a  beautiful  goal.  Hence  we  may  evade  the  philosoph- 
ical duty  of  proving  through  reasons  that  they  are 
justified  ends.  We  take  them  for  granted,  and  we  only 
insist  that  the  one  is  not  the  other,  and  that  it  is  utterly 
in  vain  to  measure  the  value  of  socialism  with  reference 
to  these  two  ideals,  as  long  as  we  do  not  cleanly  dis- 
criminate for  which  of  the  two  socialism  can  be  valu- 
able. In  itself  it  may  very  well  be  that  it  is  splendid 

[79] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
for  human  progress,  but  unfit  for  promoting  human 
happiness,  or  that  it  is  powerless  for  the  development  of 
mankind,  but  most  successful  for  the  increase  of  human 
joy. 

Hence  we  ask  at  first  only:  how  does  the  old  or  the 
new  system  serve  the  progress  of  mankind?  What  this 
human  progress  means  is  clearly  interpreted  by  the 
history  of  five  thousand  years  of  civilization.  It  is  the 
history  of  the  growing  differentiation  of  human  de- 
mands and  fulfilments.  Every  new  stage  in  the  culture 
of  mankind  developed  new  desires  and  new  longings 
from  nature  and  from  society,  but  it  also  brought  with 
it  new  means  of  satisfying  the  longings  and  fulfilling 
the  desires.  The  two  belong  most  intimately  together. 
The  new  means  of  fulfilment  stimulate  new  desires  of 
intellect  and  emotion  and  will,  and  the  new  desires 
lead  to  further  means  of  their  satisfaction.  Thus  there 
is  an  incessant  automatic  enrichment,  an  endless  dif- 
ferentiation, a  thousand  new  needs  on  the  height  of 
civilization  where  the  primitive  race  found  a  few  ele- 
mentary demands,  and  a  thousand  new  schemes  of 
material  technique  and  of  social,  institutional  life  where 
the  lower  culture  found  all  it  needed  with  simple  de- 
vices. It  is  an  unfolding  not  dissimilar  to  that  which 
the  plants  and  the  animals  have  shown  in  their  organic 

[80] 


SOCIALISM 

life  in  the  long  periods  of  natural  evolution.  The  de- 
velopment from  the  infusors  to  the  monkeys  was  such  a 
steady  increase  in  the  manifoldness  of  functions.  The 
butterfly  is  as  well  adjusted  to  its  life  conditions  and  as 
well  off  as  the  fish,  and  the  fish  as  well  off  as  the  ele- 
phant, and  in  the  evolution  of  economic  civilization  as 
in  that  of  the  kingdom  of  animals  the  advance  does 
not  involve  an  increase  of  joy.  Pain  results  from 
a  lack  of  adjustment,  but  not  from  a  scarcity  of  func- 
tions. Hence  if  we  strive  for  progress  alone,  we  are 
moved  not  by  the  hope  for  greater  joy,  but  by  an 
enthusiastic  belief  in  the  value  of  progress  and  develop- 
ment itself.  Does  a  socialistic  order  secure  a  more 
forceful,  a  more  spontaneous,  a  more  many-sided,  or 
even  a  more  harmonious  growing  of  new  demands  and 
of  new  means  for  fulfilment  than  the  capitalistic  system 
which  holds  us  all  to-day? 

The  psychologist  certainly  has  no  right  to  ask  to  be 
heard  first,  when  this  strictly  economic  aspect  of  the 
great  social  problem  is  emphasized.  Industrial  spe- 
cialists, administrators  of  labour,  politicians,  and  fi- 
nanciers stand  nearest  to  the  issue.  But  whatever 
they  testify,  they  ultimately  have  to  point  to  mental 
facts,  and  the  psychologist  is  naturally  anxious  to 
emphasize  them.  He  has  nothing  new  to  contribute. 

[81] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
It  is  the  old  story  of  the  stimulating  influence  of  the 
spirit  of  competition.  Healthy  progress  demands  un- 
usual exertion.  All  psychological  conditions  for  that 
maximum  strain  are  unfavourable  in  a  socialistic  state 
with  its  acknowledged  need  of  rigid  regulation  and  bu- 
reaucracy. We  see  all  around  us  the  flabby  routine 
work,  stale  and  uninspiring,  wherever  sharp  rivalry  has 
no  chance.  It  is  the  great  opportunity  for  mediocrity, 
while  the  unusual  talent  is  made  ineffective  and  wasted. 
Our  present  civilization  shows  that  in  every  country 
really  decisive  achievement  is  found  only  in  those 
fields  which  draw  the  strongest  minds,  and  that  they  are 
drawn  only  where  the  greatest  premiums  are  tempting 
them.  To-day  even  the  monopolist  stands  in  the  midst 
of  such  competition,  as  he  can  never  monopolize  the 
money  of  the  land.  This  spur  which  the  leaders  feel  is 
an  incessant  stimulus  for  all  those  whom  they  control, 
and,  as  soon  as  that  tension  is  released  at  the  highest 
point,  a  perfunctory  performance  with  all  its  well- 
cnown  side  features,  the  waste  and  the  idleness,  the 
lack  of  originality  and  the  unwillingness  to  take  risks, 
must  set  in  and  deaden  the  work. 

Nature  runs  gigantic  risks  all  the  time,  and  throws 
millions  of  blossoms  away  so  as  to  have  its  harvest  of 
fruit,  and  at  the  same  time  nature  shows  the  strictest 

[821 


SOCIALISM 

economy  and  most  perfect  adjustment  to  ends  in  the 
single  blossom  which  comes  to  fruit.  Just  this  double- 
ness  is  needed  in  the  progressive  economic  life.  The 
rampant  luxuriousness  which  is  willing  to  throw  away 
large  means  for  a  trial  and  for  a  fancy  which  may  lead 
to  nothing,  and  yet  a  scrupulous  economy  which  reaches 
its  ends  with  the  smallest  possible  waste,  must  blend. 
But  as  long  as  man's  mind  is  not  greatly  changed,  both 
will  be  the  natural  tendency  of  the  capitalist,  and  both 
are  abhorred  by  the  governmental  worker.  He  has  no 
right  to  run  risks,  but  does  not  feel  it  his  duty  to  avoid 
an  unproductive  luxuriousness.  He  wastes  in  the  rou- 
tine where  he  ought  to  economize,  and  is  pedantic  in 
the  great  schemes  in  which  his  imagination  ought  to  be 
unbridled.  The  opponents  of  socialism  have  often 
likened  the  future  state  to  a  gigantic  prison,  where 
every  one  will  be  forced  to  do  the  work  without  a  chance 
for  a  motive  which  appeals  to  him  as  an  individual. 
This  is  in  one  respect  unfair,  as  the  socialists  want  to 
abolish  private  capital,  but  do  not  want  to  equalize  the 
premiums  for  work.  Yet  is  their  method  not  introduc. 
ing  inequality  up  to  the  point  where  it  has  many  of  the 
bad  features  of  our  present  system,  and  abolishing  it  just 
at  the  point  where  it  would  be  stimulating  and  fertiliz- 
ing to  commerce  and  industry?  We  are  to  allow  great 

[83] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
differences  of  personal  possession.  Even  to-day  the 
large  companies  count  with  hundred-thousand-dollar 
salaries,  and  there  is  nothing  in  the  socialistic  princi- 
ple which  would  counteract  this  tendency.  The  differ- 
ences may  even  grow,  if  the  economic  callings  are  to 
attract  the  great  talents  at  all  in  such  a  future  state. 
But  just  the  one  decisive  value  of  the  possessions  for 
the  development  of  industry  and  commerce  —  namely, 
the  transforming  of  the  material  gain  into  the  capital 
which  produces  and  works,  would  become  impossible. 
The  national  achievement  would  be  dragged  down. 
All  the  dangers  which  threaten  bureaucratic  industrial- 
ism everywhere  —  political  party  influences  with  their 
capricious  zigzag  courses,  favouritism,  protection  and 
graft,  waste  and  indifference,  small  men  with  inflated 
importance  in  great  positions,  and  great  men  with 
crushed  wings  in  narrow  places  —  all  would  naturally 
increase,  and  weaken  the  nation  in  the  rivalry  of  the 
world. 

While  such  paralyzing  influences  were  working  from 
above,  the  changes  from  below  would  interfere  no  less 
with  vigorous  achievement.  Every  gateway  would  be 
wide  open.  Socialism  would  mean  a  policy  opposite  to 
that  of  the  trade  unions  to-day.  They  are  energetically 
excluding  the  unfit.  Under  the  new  order  the  fine 

[84] 


SOCIALISM 

day  for  the  unfit  would  have  dawned.  At  present  the 
socialists  feel  at  home  in  the  system  of  the  unions, 
because  the  firm  organization  of  the  workingmen 
through  the  unions  is  helpful  for  then*  cause.  But  if 
that  cause  wins,  the  barriers  of  every  union  must  break 
down,  and  the  industrial  energies  of  the  nation  will  be 
scattered  in  the  unimportant  work  in  order  to  give  an 
equal  chance  to  the  unproductive. 

Nobody  doubts  that  socialism  would  overcome  some 
of  the  obvious  weaknesses  of  the  capitalistic  era,  and 
those  weaknesses  may  be  acknowledged  even  if  we  are 
faithful  to  our  plan  and  abstract  from  mere  human  hap- 
piness. If  only  the  objective  achievement  is  our  aim, 
we  cannot  deny  that  the  millionfold  misery  from  sick- 
ness and  old  age,  from  accidents  at  work,  and  from 
unemployment  through  a  crisis  in  trade,  from  starva- 
tion wages,  and  from  losses  through  fraudulent  under- 
takings, is  keeping  us  from  the  goal.  But  has  the 
groaning  of  this  misery  remained  unheard  in  these 
times,  when  capitalism  has  been  reaching  its  height? 
The  last  two  decades  have  shown  that  the  system  of  pri- 
vate ownership  can  be  in  deepest  harmony  with  all  those 
efforts  to  alleviate  its  cruelties  in  order  to  strengthen 
the  efficiency  of  the  nation  at  work.  Certainly  the 
socialists  themselves  deserve  credit  for  much  in  the 

[85] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
great  international  movement  toward  the  material 
security  of  the  workingman's  social  life.  It  is  doubtful 
whether  without  her  social  democrats,  Germany,  the 
pioneer  in  the  social  insurance  movement,  would  have 
given  to  the  army  of  workingmen  those  protective  laws 
which  became  the  model  for  England  and  other  nations, 
and  which  are  beginning  to  be  influential  in  Ameri- 
can thinking,  too.  The  laws  against  child  labour,  the 
efforts  for  minimum  wage  rates,  and,  most  important, 
the  world -wide  tendency  to  secure  a  firm  supervision 
and  regulation  of  the  private  companies  by  the  state, 
are  characteristic  features  of  the  new  period  in  which 
capitalism  triumphs,  and  yet  is  freeing  itself  from 
cancerous  growths  which  destroy  its  power  for  fullest 
achievement. 

To  work  nine  hours  instead  of  ten,  and  eight  instead 
of  nine,  was  only  apparently  an  encroachment  on  the 
industrial  work.  The  worldwide  experiment  has  proved 
that  the  shorter  working  hours  allow  an  intensity  of 
strain  and  an  improvement  of  the  workmen  which  ulti- 
mately heighten  the  value  of  the  output.  The  safety 
devices  burdened  the  manufacturer  with  expenses,  and 
yet  the  economist  knows  that  no  outlay  is  more  ser- 
viceable for  the  achievement  of  the  factory.  Unionism 
and  arbitration  treaties  are  sincere  and  momentous 

[86] 


SOCIALISM 

efforts  to  help  the  whole  industrial  nation.  And  all 
this  may  be  only  the  beginning.  The  time  may  really 
come  when  every  healthy  man  will  serve  his  year  in  the 
industrial  army.  Man  and  woman  and  child  may  thus 
be  more  and  more  protected  against  the  destructive 
abuses  of  our  economic  scheme.  Their  physical  health 
and  their  mental  energy  may  be  kept  in  better  and  bet- 
ter working  order  by  social  reforms,  by  state  measures 
and  strong  organization.  The  fear  of  the  future,  that 
greatest  destroyer  of  the  labourer's  working  mood,  may 
be  more  and  more  eliminated.  Extremely  much  still 
remains  to  be  done,  but  the  best  of  it  can  surely  be  done 
without  giving  up  the  idea  of  private  capital.  In  the 
framework  of  the  capitalistic  order  such  reforms  mean 
a  national  scientific  management  in  the  interest  of 
efficiency  and  success.  If  that  framework  is  destroyed, 
the  vigour  and  the  energy  are  lost,  and  no  improve- 
ments in  the  detail  can  patch  up  the  ruinous  weakness 
in  the  foundation.  If  the  goal  is  an  increased  achieve- 
ment of  the  industrialized  nation,  socialism  is  bound  to 
be  a  failure  as  long  as  human  minds  and  their  motives 
are  what  they  are  to-day  and  what  they  have  been 
through  the  last  five  thousand  years. 

No  doubt  such  arguments  have  little  weight  with  the 
larger  number  of  those  who  come  to  the  defence  of 

[87] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
socialism.  The  purpose,  they  would  say,  is  not  at  all 
to  squeeze  more  work  out  of  the  nerves  and  muscles  of 
the  labourer,  to  fill  still  more  the  pocket  of  the  corpora- 
tions, to  produce  still  more  of  the  infernal  noise  in  the 
workshops  of  the  world.  The  real  aim  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  output  and  the  muscle,  but  with  the  joy 
and  happiness  of  the  industrial  workers,  who  have  be- 
come slaves  in  the  capitalistic  era.  It  is  quite  true 
that  if  this  is  the  end,  the  arguments  which  speak 
against  the  efficiency  of  socialism  might  well  be  disre- 
garded. The  mixing  of  the  reasons  can  bring  only  con- 
fusion, and  such  chaos  is  unavoidable  indeed,  as  long 
as  the  aims  are  not  clearly  discriminated.  We  may 
acknowledge  frankly  that  the  socialistic  order  may  be  a 
hindrance  to  highest  efficiency,  and  yet  should  be  wel- 
comed because  it  would  abolish  the  sources  of  unhap- 
piness.  Yet  is  there  really  any  hope  for  such  a  para- 
dise? The  problem  of  achievement  may  stand  nearer 
to  the  economist,  but  that  of  happiness  and  misery  is 
thoroughly  a  question  of  the  mind,  and  it  is  the  duty  of 
the  psychologist  to  take  a  stand. 

His  issues,  however,  ought  not  to  be  confused  by 
mixing  in  a  side  problem  which  is  always  emphasized 
when  the  emotional  appeal  is  made  and  the  misery  of 
the  workmen's  fate  is  shown  up.  There  is  no  unhappier 

[88] 


SOCIALISM 

lot  than  that  of  those  healthy  men  who  can  work  and 
want  to  work,  and  do  not  find  a  chance  to  work.  But 
this  tremendous  problem  of  the  unemployed  is  not 
organically  connected  with  the  struggle  about  socialism. 
As  far  as  social  organization  and  human  foresight  can 
ever  be  able  to  overcome  this  disease  of  the  industrial 
body,  the  remedies  can  just  as  well  be  applied  in  the 
midst  of  full-fledged  capitalism.  It  is  quite  true  that 
the  misfortune  of  unemployment  may  never  be  com- 
pletely uprooted,  but  vast  improvements  can  easily  be 
conceived  without  any  economic  revolution;  and,  above 
all,  no  scheme  has  been  proposed  by  the  socialists  which 
would  offer  more.  As  long  as  there  is  a  market  with  its 
ups  and  downs,  as  long  as  harvests  vary  and  social  de- 
pressions occur,  there  will  be  those  who  have  no  chance 
for  then*  usual  useful  activity.  If  the  community  of 
the  socialistic  state  supports  them,  it  will  do  no  more 
than  the  capitalistic  state  will  surely  do  very  soon,  too. 
If  we  want  to  see  clean  issues,  we  ought  to  rule  out  the 
problem  of  unemployment  entirely. 

The  socialistic  hope  can  be  only  that,  through  the 
abolition  of  capital,  the  average  workman  will  get  a 
richer  share  from  the  fruits  of  his  industrial  labour.  In 
the  programmes  of  the  American  socialists  it  has  taken 
the  neat  round  figure  that  every  workingman  ought  to 

[89] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 

live  on  the  standard  of  five  thousand  dollars  yearly  in- 
come. Of  course  the  five  thousand  dollars  themselves 
are  not  an  end,  but  only  a  means  to  it.  The  end  is 
happiness,  and  here  alone  begins  the  psychologist's 
interest.  He  does  not  discuss  whether  the  five-thou- 
sand-dollar standard  as  minimum  wage  can  really  be 
expected.  He  asks  himself  only  whether  the  goal  can 
be  reached,  whether  such  a  socialistic  society  would 
really  secure  a  larger  amount  of  human  happiness.  It 
is  here  that  he  answers  that  this  claim  is  a  psychological 
illusion.  If  we  seek  socialism  for  its  external  achieve- 
ment we  must  recognize  that  it  is  a  failure;  if  we  seek  it 
for  its  internal  result,  joy  and  happiness,  it  must  be 
worse  than  a  failure.  The  psychology  of  feeling  is  still 
the  least  developed  part  of  our  modern  science  of  con- 
sciousness, but  certain  chief  facts  are  acknowledged  on 
all  sides,  and  in  their  centre  stands  the  law  of  the 
relativity  of  feeling.  Satisfaction  and  dissatisfaction, 
content  and  discontent,  happiness  and  unhappiness, 
do  not  depend  upon  absolute,  but  upon  relative,  condi- 
tions. We  have  no  reason  whatever  to  fancy  that 
mankind  served  by  the  wonderful  technique  twenty  cen- 
turies after  Christ  is  happier  than  men  were  under  the 
primitive  conditions  of  twenty  centuries  before  Christ. 
The  level  has  changed  and  has  steadily  been  raised,  but 

[90] 


SOCIALISM 

the  feelings  are  dependent,  not  upon  the  height  of  the 
level,  but  upon  the  deviations  from  it.  Each  level 
brings  its  own  demands  in  the  human  heart;  and  if  they 
are  fulfilled,  there  is  happiness;  and  if  they  are  not  ful- 
filled, there  is  discontent.  But  the  demands  of  which 
we  know  nothing  do  not  make  us  miserable  if  they  re- 
main unfulfilled.  It  is  the  change,  and  not  the  pos- 
session, which  has  the  emotional  value.  The  up  and 
down,  the  forward  and  backward,  are  felt  in  the  social 
world,  just  as  hi  the  world  of  space  the  steady  move- 
ment is  not  felt,  but  only  the  retardation  or  the  acceler- 
ation. 

The  psychologist  knows  the  interesting  psychophy- 
sical  law  according  to  which  the  differences  in  the 
strength  of  our  impressions  are  perceived  as  equal,  not 
when  the  differences  of  the  stimuli  are  really  equal,  but 
when  the  stimuli  stand  in  the  same  relation.  If  we  hear 
three  voices,  the  sound  has  a  certain  intensity;  if  a 
fourth  voice  is  added,  the  strength  of  the  sound  is 
swelling;  we  notice  a  difference.  But  if  there  is  a 
chorus  of  thirty  voices  and  one  voice  is  added,  we  do 
not  hear  a  difference  at  all.  Even  if  five  voices  are 
added  we  do  not  notice  it.  Ten  new  singers  must  be 
brought  in  for  us  to  hear  the  sound  as  really  stronger. 
And  if  we  have  a  mighty  chorus  of  three  hundred 

[911 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
singers,  not  even  twenty  or  fifty  or  even  eighty  voices 
would  help  us  to  feel  a  difference;  we  need  a  hundred 
additional  ones.  In  other  words,  the  hundred  singers 
which  come  to  help  the  three  hundred  do  not  make 
more  impression  on  us  than  the  ten  which  are  added  to 
the  thirty,  or  the  one  added  to  the  three.  Exactly  this 
holds  true  for  all  our  perceptions,  for  light  and  taste 
and  touch.  The  differences  upon  which  our  pleasures 
and  displeasures  hang,  obey  this  same  law  of  conscious- 
ness. If  we  have  three  pennies,  one  added  gives  us  a 
pleasure,  one  taken  away  gives  us  a  displeasure,  which 
is  entirely  different  from  the  pleasure  or  displeasure  if 
one  penny  is  added  or  taken  away  from  thirty  or  from 
three  hundred  pennies.  In  the  possession  of  thirty,  it 
needs  a  loss  or  gain  of  ten,  in  the  possession  of  three 
hundred  the  addition  or  subtraction  of  a  hundred,  to 
bring  us  the  same  emotional  excitement.  A  hundred 
dollars  added  to  an  income  of  five  hundred  gives  us 
just  as  much  joy  as  ten  thousand  added  to  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars.  The  objective  gain  or  loss  does  not  mean 
anything;  the  relative  increase  or  decrease  decides 
human  happiness. 

Do  we  not  see  it  everywhere  in  our  surroundings?  If 
we  lean  over  the  railing  and  watch  the  steerage  in  the 
crowded  ship,  is  there  really  less  gayety  among  the 

[92] 


SOCIALISM 

fourth-class  passengers  than  among  the  first-class? 
Where  are  the  gifts  of  life  which  bring  happiness  to 
every  one?  I  have  friends  to  whom  a  cigar,  a  cocktail, 
and  a  game  of  cards  are  delightful  sources  of  pleasure, 
the  missing  of  which  would  mean  to  them  a  real  depri- 
vation. I  have  never  played  cards,  I  have  never  touched 
a  cocktail,  and  have  never  had  a  cigar  between  my  lips; 
and  yet  I  have  never  missed  them.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  feel  extremely  uncomfortable  if  a  day  passes  in  which 
I  have  not  gone  through  three  or  four  newspapers,  while 
I  have  friends  who  are  most  happy  if  they  do  not  have 
a  printed  sheet  in  hand  for  months.  The  socialists 
claim  that  the  possession  of  one's  own  house  ought  to 
be  the  minimum  external  standard,  and  yet  the  number 
increases  of  those  who  are  not  happy  until  they  are  rid 
of  their  own  house  and  can  live  in  a  little  apartment. 
Of  course  it  might  be  said  that  the  individual  desires 
vary  from  man  to  man,  but  that  an  ample  income  allows 
every  one  to  satisfy  his  particular  likes  and  to  protect 
himself  against  his  particular  dislikes.  But  the  situa- 
tion is  not  changed  if  we  see  it  under  this  more  general 
aspect  of  the  money  as  means  for  the  satisfaction  of  all 
possible  wishes.  The  psychological  law  of  the  relativ- 
ity of  consciousness  negates  no  less  this  general  claim. 
There  is  no  limit  to  the  quantity  of  desires.  On  the 

[93] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
level  of  expensive  life  the  desires  become  excessive,  and 
only  excessive  means  can  satisfy  them;  on  a  lower 
economic  level,  the  desires  are  modest,  but  modest 
means  are  therefore  able  to  give  complete  satisfaction 
and  happiness. 

The  greatest  dissatisfaction,  hopeless  despair,  ex- 
presses itself  in  suicide.  Statistics  show  that  those  who 
sink  to  this  lowest  degree  of  life  satisfaction  are  not  the 
poorest.  Not  seldom  they  are  the  millionaires  who 
have  lost  their  fortune  and  kept  only  enough  for  a  living 
which  would  still  be  a  source  of  happiness  to  hosts 
of  others.  If  the  average  wage  were  five  thousand 
dollars,  or,  better  said,  the  comfort  which  five  thousand 
dollars  can  buy  to-day,  this  standard  would  be  taken  as 
a  matter  of  course  like  fresh  air  and  fresh  water.  The 
same  old  dissatisfactions  and  discomforts  would  spring 
from  the  human  heart,  when  it  looked  with  envy  on  the 
luxuries  of  the  ten-thousand-dollar  men,  or  when  by 
recklessness  and  foolishness  or  illness  the  habitual  home 
life  became  suddenly  reduced  to  a  pitiable  three-thou- 
sand-dollar standard,  which  would  be  the  goal  for  the 
workingmen  of  to-day.  We  are  too  little  aware  that 
the  average  existence  of  the  masses  in  earlier  centuries 
was  on  a  much  narrower  scale  than  the  life  of  practi- 
cally the  poorest  to-day,  and  that  the  mere  material 

[941 


SOCIALISM 

existence  of  those  who  to-day  consider  themselves  as 
industrial  slaves  is  in  many  respects  high  above  that  of 
the  apprentices  in  the  periods  before  the  machine  age. 
Even  at  present  those  who  think  that  they  are  at  the 
bottom  of  material  life  in  one  country  often  live  much 
better  than  the  multitudes  in  other  lands  in  which 
fewer  desires  have  been  aroused  and  developed. 

The  individual  may  often  alternate  between  different 
standards,  just  as  any  one  of  us  when  he  goes  out  camp- 
ing may  feel  perfectly  happy  with  the  most  moderate 
external  conditions,  which  would  appear  to  him  utter 
deprivation  in  the  midst  of  his  stylish  life  the  year 
around.  Many  an  Irish  servant  girl  feels  that  she  can- 
not live  here  without  her  own  bathroom,  and  yet  is  per- 
fectly satisfied  when  she  goes  home  for  the  summer  and 
lives  with  seven  in  a  room,  not  counting  the  pigs.  This 
dependence  upon  relative  conditions  must  be  the  more 
complete  the  more  the  income  is  used  for  external  satis- 
factions. As  far  as  the  means  serve  education  and 
aesthetic  enjoyment  and  inner  culture,  there  remains  at 
least  a  certain  parallelism  between  the  amount  of  supply 
and  the  enjoyment.  But  the  average  American  of  the 
five-thousand-dollar  class  spends  four  thousand  nine 
hundred  dollars  on  goods  of  a  different  order.  Alto- 
gether his  expenses  are  the  house  and  the  table,  the 

[95] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
clothes  of  the  women,  and  his  runabout.  In  all  these 
lines  there  is  no  limit,  and  the  house  of  to-day  is  no 
longer  a  pleasure  if  his  neighbour  builds  a  bigger  one 
to-morrow.  The  man  with  the  fifty-thousand-dollar 
expenditures  feels  the  same  dissatisfaction  if  he  cannot 
have  the  steam  yacht  and  the  picture  gallery  which  the 
multimillionaire  enjoys. 

The  inner  attitude,  the  temperament,  the  training, 
the  adjustment  of  desires  to  the  available  means,  is  the 
only  decisive  factor  in  such  situations.  The  trust  mag- 
nate and  the  factory  foreman  have  equal  chances  to 
feel  happiness  in  the  standard  of  life  in  which  they  live. 
If  they  compare  themselves  with  those  who  are  richer, 
and  if  their  hearts  hang  on  the  external  satisfactions, 
they  both  may  feel  wretched;  and  yet  with  another 
turn  of  mind  they  both  may  be  content.  Optimism  and 
pessimism,  contentment  and  envy,  self-dependence 
and  dependence  upon  the  judgment  of  the  world,  joy- 
fulness  and  despondency,  are  more  decisive  contrasts 
for  the  budget  of  happiness  than  the  difference  between 
fifteen  dollars  a  week  and  fifteen  dollars  a  minute. 
Some  of  my  best  friends  have  to  live  from  hand  to 
mouth,  and  some  are  multimillionaires.  I  have  found 
them  on  the  whole  equally  happy  and  equally  satisfied 
with  their  position  in  life.  If  there  was  a  difference  at 

[96] 


SOCIALISM 

all,  I  discovered  that  those  who  ate  from  silver  plates 
were  sometimes  complaining  about  the  materialism  of 
our  time,  in  which  so  much  value  is  put  on  money.  I 
have  never  found  their  fate  especially  enviable,  nor  that 
of  the  others  especially  pitiable,  and  evidently  they 
themselves  have  no  such  feelings.  The  general  im- 
pression is  much  more  as  if  actors  play  on  the  stage. 
The  one  gives  the  r6le  of  the  king  in  purple  cloak  and 
ermine,  the  other  plays  the  part  of  a  beggar  in  ragged 
clothes.  But  the  one  role  is  not  more  interesting  than 
the  other,  and  everything  depends  upon  the  art  of  play- 
ing the  character. 

This  whole  scramble  for  money's  worth  is  based  on  a 
psychological  illusion,  not  only  because  pleasure  and 
displeasure  are  dependent  upon  relative  conditions,  but 
also  because  the  elimination  of  one  source  of  feeling 
intensifies  the  feelings  from  other  sources.  The  vulgar 
display  of  wealth  which  cheapens  our  life  so  much,  the 
desire  to  seek  social  distinction  by  a  scale  of  expendi- 
ture which  in  itself  gives  no  joy,  have  in  our  time  accen- 
tuated the  longing  for  wealth  out  of  all  proportion. 
This  is  true  of  every  layer  of  society.  The  clerk's  wife 
spends  for  her  frocks  just  as  absurdly  large  a  part  of  his 
income  as  the  banker's  wife.  Every  salesgirl  must  have 
a  plume  on  her  hat  rather  than  a  nourishing  luncheon. 

[97] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
Others  must  have  six  motor  cars  instead  of  a  decent 
library  in  their  palace.  But  this  longing  for  useless 
display  is  still  outdone  by  the  hysterical  craving  for 
amusement.  The  factory  girl  must  have  her  movies 
every  night,  and  besides  the  nine  hundred  kino  shows, 
a  hundred  and  twenty  theatres  are  needed  to  satisfy 
the  amusement  seeking  crowd  of  New  York,  in  addition 
to  the  half  dozen  which  offer  art.  This  mad  race  to  out- 
do one  another  and  this  hunting  after  pleasures  which 
tickle  the  senses  have  benumbed  the  social  mind  and 
have  inhibited  in  it  the  feeling  for  deeper  values.  But  if 
by  a  magic  word  extreme  equality  of  material  means  were 
created  and  the  mere  sensuous  enjoyments  evenly  dis- 
tributed, in  that  moment  all  the  other  differences  from 
individual  to  individual  would  be  felt  with  heightened 
sharpness,  and  would  be  causes  for  much  stronger  feel- 
ings of  happiness  and  unhappiness. 

Men  differ  in  their  inborn  mental  powers,  in  their 
intelligence  and  talent,  in  beauty,  in  health,  in  honours 
and  career,  in  family  and  friends.  The  contrasts  which 
are  created  in  every  one  of  these  respects  are  far  greater 
and  for  the  ill-fated  far  more  cruel  than  those  of  the  tax- 
paye'rs.  The  beautiful  face  which  is  a  passport  through 
life  and  the  discouraging  homeliness,  the  perfect  body 
which  allows  vigorous  work  and  the  weak  organism  of 

[98] 


SOCIALISM 

the  invalid  unfit  for  the  struggle  of  life,  the  genius  in 
science  or  art  or  statesmanship  and  the  hopelessly  triv- 
ial mind,  the  youth  in  a  harmonious,  beautiful  family 
life  and  the  childhood  in  an  atmosphere  of  discord,  the 
home  full  of  love  from  wife  and  children  and  the  house 
childless  and  chilly,  the  honours  of  the  community 
and  the  disappointment  of  social  bankruptcy  —  they 
are  the  great  premiums  and  the  great  punishments, 
which  are  whirled  by  fate  into  the  crowd  of  mankind. 
Even  here  most  of  it  is  relative.  We  rejoice  in  four- 
score years,  but  if  we  knew  that  others  were  allowed  a 
thousand  years  of  life,  we  should  be  despondent  that 
hardly  a  short  century  is  dealt  out  to  us.  We  are  happy 
in  the  respect  of  our  social  community  simply  because 
we  do  not  desire  the  honours  of  the  czar  or  of  the  mi- 
kado. But  if  we  began  to  measure  our  fate  by  that  of 
others,  how  could  we  ever  be  satisfied?  Women  might 
envy  men  and  men  might  envy  women,  the  poet  might 
wish  to  be  the  champion  of  sport  and  the  sportsman 
might  be  unhappy  because  he  is  not  a  poet.  No  one  of 
us  can  have  the  knowledge  and  the  technical  powers 
which  the  child  of  the  thirtieth  century  will  enjoy.  As 
soon  as  we  begin  to  compare  and  do  not  find  the  centre 
of  our  life  in  ourselves,  we  are  condemned. 

Everybody's  life  is  composed  of  joys  and  pains  which 
[99] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
may  come  from  any  of  these  sources.  Where  beauty  is 
lacking,  wit  may  brilliantly  shine;  where  health  is  fail- 
ing, a  talent  may  console;  where  the  family  life  is  un- 
happy, the  ambitions  for  a  career  may  be  fulfilled. 
Much  inequality  will  thus  result,  but  the  chances  for  a 
certain  evenness  of  human  joy  and  sorrow  will  be  the 
greater  the  more  numerous  the  sources  from  which  the 
joys  and  griefs  of  our  days  are  springing.  Add  the 
inequalities  of  wealth,  and  you  increase  the  chances 
that  the  emotional  values  in  the  lives  of  all  of  us  will 
become  more  equal.  The  ugly  girl  may  be  rich  and 
the  poor  one  may  be  beautiful,  the  genius  may  hunger 
and  the  stupid  man  may  marry  the  widow  with  mil- 
lions, the  healthy  man  may  have  to  earn  his  scanty 
living  and  the  patient  may  enjoy  the  luxuries  of  life. 
Their  states  of  feeling  will  be  more  alike  than  if  a  so- 
cialistic order  had  put  them  all  on  the  same  economic 
level  of  philistine  comfort.  The  joys  of  capital  are  after 
all  much  less  deeply  felt  than  any  of  those  others,  and 
the  sufferings  from  poverty  are  much  less  incisive  than 
those  from  disappointed  ambition,  from  jealousy,  from 
illness,  or  from  bereavement.  It  is  well  known  that 
many  more  people  die  from  overfeeding  than  from 
underfeeding.  We  may  feel  disgusted  that  the  luxuries 
so  often  fall  to  the  unworthy  and  that  the  finest  people 
[100] 


SOCIALISM 

have  to  endure  the  hardship  of  narrow  means.  But 
all  those  other  gifts  and  deprivations,  those  talents  and 
beauties  and  powers  and  family  relations,  are  no  less 
arbitrarily  dealt  out.  We  all  may  wish  to  be  geniuses 
or  radiant  beauties,  great  singers  or  fathers  of  a  dozen 
children;  we  have  not  chosen  our  more  modest  lot. 

It  might  be  answered  that  the  poverty  of  the  indus- 
trial masses  to-day  means  not  only  the  absence  of  the 
special  comforts,  but  that  it  means  positive  suffering. 
Men  are  starving  from  want  and  are  chained  down  like 
slaves  to  a  torturing  task.  But  let  us  discriminate.  It 
is  true  in  states  of  unemployment  and  illness  the  phys- 
ical man  may  be  crushed  by  naked  poverty,  but  that 
has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  socialism.  We  have 
emphasized  before  that  it  is  the  solemn  duty  of  society 
to  find  ways  and  means  to  protect  every  one  who  is 
willing  to  work  as  long  as  he  is  healthy,  against  star- 
vation in  times  of  old  age  and  sickness,  and  if  possible 
in  periods  of  market  depression.  The  non-socialistic 
community  has  the  power  to  take  care  of  that,  and  it  is 
entirely  an  illusory  belief  that  socialism  has  in  that 
respect  any  advantage.  All  the  comparisons  of  the 
two  economic  orders  ought  to  refer  only  to  the  varia- 
tions rather  high  above  the  starvation  line,  even  though 
the  American  must  call  starvation  a  standard  which  the 
[101] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
coolie  may  think  tolerable  and  to  which  the  European 
poor  in  the  Middle  Ages  were  often  accustomed.  On 
the  other  hand,  neither  capitalism  nor  socialism  can 
protect  the  reckless  and  the  wasteful  against  economic 
suicide. 

Much  more  important  is  the  problem  of  suffering 
through  the  character  of  the  work  itself.  That  is  the 
real  fountainhead  of  the  socialistic  flood  which 
threatens  to  inundate  our  present-day  social  structures. 
But  is  there  not  even  here  a  psychological  misunder- 
standing involved?  It  may  be  granted  that  many  a 
man  and  many  a  woman  stand  in  the  factory  day  after 
day  and  year  after  year  with  the  one  feeling  of  distress 
and  wretchedness  at  the  hard  work  to  which  they  are 
forced.  But  is  their  work  really  responsible  for  it,  and 
is  it  not  rather  their  personal  attitude?  Who  is  doing 
harder  physical  work  than  the  sportsman?  There  is 
no  more  exhausting  muscle  strain  than  the  climb  over 
the  glaciers  of  the  Alps,  which  thousands  pursue  with 
passion.  Analyze  the  profession  of  the  physician. 
How  many  of  his  functions  are  in  themselves  of  such  a 
character  that  they  might  be  denounced  as  the  most 
humiliating  slavery,  if  they  were  demanded  from  any 
man  who  could  not  see  the  aim  and  higher  interest 
which  they  are  serving!  This  is  exactly  the  point 
[102] 


SOCIALISM 

where  the  leaders  of  labour  are  sinning  unpardonably. 
They  work  with  all  the  means  of  suggestion,  until  the 
workman,  as  if  hypnotized,  looks  on  the  mere  move- 
ments which  he  is  to  perform  in  the  factory,  and  for- 
gets entirely  the  higher  interest  and  aim  of  civilization 
which  he  is  helping  to  serve.  The  scholar  in  his  labora- 
tory has  to  do  a  thousand  things  which  in  themselves 
are  ugly  and  dirty,  tiresome  and  dangerous,  uninterest- 
ing and  exhausting,  but  which  he  is  performing  with 
enthusiasm  because  he  knows  that  he  is  serving  the 
great  ideal  of  cultured  life,  to  discover  the  truth  and 
thus  to  help  the  progress  of  mankind.  There  is  under 
no  factory  roof  a  workman  so  forlorn  that  the  work  of 
his  hands  is  not  aiding  the  fulfilment  of  an  equally  great 
and  equally  ideal  purpose  of  civilized  mankind,  the 
development  of  economic  civilization.  As  soon  as  his 
labour  amidst  the  noise  of  the  machines  is  felt  as  such 
a  service  to  an  ideal  cultural  purpose,  the  work  is  no 
longer  dead,  but  living,  interesting,  significant,  won- 
derful. 

The  mother  who  takes  care  of  her  little  children  has 
to  go  through  a  thousand  tiresome  actions  which  would 
be  intolerable  if  they  were  meaningless,  but  which  com- 
pose a  beautiful  life  if  they  are  held  together  by  the  aim 
which  the  motherly  love  sees  before  it.  Whatever  work 

[103] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
a  human  being  may  perform,  force  on  his  mind  the 
treacherous  suggestion  that  it  is  meaningless,  that  it  is 
slavery,  that  others  seize  the  profit,  and  he  must  hate  it 
and  feel  it  an  unbearable  hardship.  It  has  often  been 
observed  that  the  most  bitter  complaints  have  always 
come  from  those  workers  who  are  reached  by  the  sug- 
gestions of  theories  and  not  from  those  who  simply  face 
practice,  even  though  their  life  may  be  a  much  harder 
one.  In  Russia  the  workingmen  of  the  city  found  their 
life  so  intolerable  that  revolts  broke  out,  while  the  rural 
classes  were  satisfied  with  conditions  of  much  more 
cruel  deprivation.  Our  social  reformers  too  easily  for- 
get the  one  great  teaching  of  the  history  of  mankind, 
that  the  most  powerful  factor  in  the  world  is  the  ideas. 
Surely  there  is  some  truth  even  in  that  one-sided  picture 
of  the  history  of  civilization  which  makes  everything 
dependent  upon  economic  conditions,  but  the  element 
of  truth  which  is  contained  therein  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  economic  conditions  may  influence  the  ideas.  The 
ideas  are  the  really  decisive  agencies.  Only  for  ideas 
have  men  been  ready  to  die,  and  for  ideas  have  they 
killed  one  another.  Give  to  the  world  the  idea  that 
earthly  goods  are  useless  and  heavenly  goods  alone 
valuable,  and  in  this  kingdom  of  the  religious  idea  the 
beggarly  rags  of  the  monk  are  more  desired  than  the 
[104] 


SOCIALISM 

gold  of  the  mighty.  Religion  and  patriotism,  honour 
and  loyalty,  ambition  and  love,  reform  ideals  and  polit- 
ical goals,  aesthetic,  intellectual,  and  moral  ideas  have 
turned  the  great  wheel  of  history.  Give  to  the  work- 
ingman  the  right  kind  of  ideas,  the  right  attitude  to- 
ward his  work,  and  all  the  hardship  becomes  blessedness 
and  the  suffering  glory.  His  best  payment  then  will 
be  the  satisfaction  of  carrying  his  stone  to  the  great 
temple  of  human  progress,  even  though  it  may  not  be 
a  cornerstone. 

Even  the  complaint  repeated  without  end  that  the 
workingman's  task  is  unendurable  because  of  its  un- 
ceasing monotony  is  ultimately  nothing  but  a  psy- 
chological theory,  and  this  theory  is  superficial  and  mis- 
leading. It  is  easy  to  point  out  to  the  suggestible  mind 
that  there  is  a  wonderful  enrichment  of  life  in  variety, 
and  that  uniformity  must  therefore  be  something  ugly 
and  discouraging  and  unworthy.  But  the  real  mental 
facts  allow  just  as  well  the  opposite  argument.  The 
mere  change  and  variation,  going  from  one  thing  to  an- 
other, makes  the  mind  restless  and  distracted,  without 
inner  unity  and  harmony.  To  be  loyal  to  one  task  and 
to  continue  it  faithfully  and  insistently,  brings  that 
perfect  adjustment  of  the  mind  in  which  every  new  act 
is  welcome  because  it  has  become  the  habit  ingrained  in 

[1051 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
the  personality.  To  be  sure  there  are  individual  dif- 
ferences. We  have  in  political  life,  too,  radicals  who  get 
more  satisfaction  from  change,  and  conservatives  who 
prefer  continuity  of  traditions;  and  so  the  whole  mental 
structure  of  some  men  is  better  adjusted  to  a  frequent 
variation  in  work,  and  that  of  others  better  prepared 
for  continuity.  The  one  has  a  temperament  which  may 
lead  him  from  one  occupation  to  another,  from  one  town 
to  another,  from  one  flat  to  another,  from  one  set  of 
companions  to  another.  But  there  is  the  opposite  type 
of  minds.  To  them  it  is  far  more  welcome  to  continue 
throughout  life  at  the  same  work,  in  the  same  old  home, 
in  touch  with  the  same  dear  friends.  Many  minds 
surely  are  better  fitted  for  alternation  in  their  activi- 
ties, but  many  others,  and  they  certainly  are  not  the 
worst,  are  naturally  much  better  adapted  to  a  regular 
repetition.  There  are  opportunities  for  both  types  of 
mental  behaviour  in  the  workshop  of  the  nation,  and  the 
peaceful  adjustment  is  disturbed  only  by  the  hasty 
theory  that  repetition  is  a  lower  class  of  work,  which 
makes  man  a  mere  machine  and  that  it  is  therefore 
to  be  despised.  Change  the  theory  about  uniformity, 
and  you  remove  monotony  from  the  industrial  world. 
Monotony  is  only  the  uniformity  which  is  hated. 

Do  we  not  see  that  power  of  theories  and  ideas  every- 
[106] 


SOCIALISM 

where  around  us,  even  in  the  most  trivial  things?  The 
most  splendid  gown  is  nothing  but  an  object  of  con- 
tempt if  it  is  the  fashion  of  the  day  before  yesterday. 
In  lands  where  titles  and  decorations  are  a  traditional 
idea,  the  little  piece  of  tin  may  be  more  coveted  than 
any  treasures  of  wealth.  Through  ideas  only  can  the 
great  social  question  be  solved.  No  distribution  of  in- 
come can  change  in  the  least  the  total  sum  of  pleasure 
and  displeasure  in  the  world,  and  the  socialistic  scheme 
is  of  all  the  useless  efforts  to  increase  pleasure  and 
to  decrease  displeasure  the  least  desirable,  because  it 
works,  as  we  have  seen,  at  the  same  time  against  those 
mental  functions  which  secure  the  most  forceful  prog- 
ress of  economic  life.  A  true  change  can  come  only 
from  within.  The  superficial,  unpsychological  theorier 
of  human  happiness,  which  have  been  hammered  into 
the  working  population  of  our  age,  have  made  true 
happiness  more  and  more  difficult  to  attain.  There  is 
small  chance  that  this  inner  conversion  will  come  in  our 
day  through  religion,  however  much  religion  may  help 
toward  it.  There  is  still  smaller  chance  that  philos- 
ophy can  do  it  and  that  the  average  man  will  take  the 
attitude  of  Antisthenes  who  claimed  that  it  is  divine  not 
to  need  anything  and  that  he  who  needs  least  is  nearest 
to  the  ideal.  But  there  is  every  chance  that  mankind 

[107] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
will  remember  again  more  vividly  the  deeper  lasting 
values  of  humanity.  Society  must  be  sobered  after 
the  frenzy  of  this  present-day  rush  for  external  goods. 
The  shallow  disappointment  is  felt  too  widely  already. 
The  world  is  beginning  to  discover  once  more  that  this 
scramble  for  pearls  and  palaces  and  motor  cars  among 
the  rich,  and  for  their  showy  imitations  among  the 
middle  class,  and  the  envy  of  material  profits  and  the 
chase  for  amusements  even  among  the  poorest,  leave 
life  meaningless  and  cold  and  silly.  As  soon  as  the 
industrial  community  turns  to  a  new  set  of  ideas  and 
becomes  inspired  by  the  belief  in  the  ideal  value  of  the 
work  as  work  and  as  a  necessary  contribution  to  the 
progress  of  mankind,  the  social  question  will  be  solved, 
as  all  the  differences  which  socialism  wants  to  eliminate 
then  appear  trivial  and  insignificant. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  this  belief  cannot  grow,  and 
cannot  spread  its  roots  deep  in  the  soil  of  the  industrial 
mind  unless,  as  a  necessary  counterpart,  the  ideas  of 
duties  and  obligations  spread  and  enlarge  among  those 
who  profit  from  the  rights  of  capital.  The  capitalistic 
society  must  organize  itself  so  that  the  sinking  below 
the  starvation  line  through  illness,  old  age,  or  unemploy- 
ment will  be  reduced  to  a  minimum,  so  that  the  greatest 
possible  participation  in  all  which  gives  higher  value  to 

[108] 


SOCIALISM 

life  will  be  secured  for  the  worker  and  his  family,  and 
above  all,  so  that  the  industrial  control  will  be  exerted 
by  the  best  and  the  wisest.  Nowhere  is  reform  of 
ideals  more  needed.  The  brutality  of  capital  is  never 
felt  more  strongly  than  when  the  workingman  suspects 
that  those  at  the  top  are  not  selected  on  account  of  their 
stronger  capacities.  Only  when  capital  is  conscious  of 
its  duties  can  the  belief  in  the  ideal  meaning  of  the 
workingman's  function  take  hold  of  the  masses  and 
inhibit  the  suggestion  of  socialism.  Merely  granting 
the  external  claims,  giving  to  the  factory  girls  increasing 
chance  for  amusement,  means  to  deceive  them.  The 
more  such  longings  are  satisfied,  the  more  they  must 
grow  and  become  a  craze  which  sharpens  the  feeling  of 
dissatisfaction.  This  desire  for  superficial  joys,  for 
sensual  amusements  and  cheap  display  is  nothing  but  a 
suggested  habit,  which  imitation  creates  in  a  period  of 
waste.  If  a  time  of  simplicity  were  to  come,  not  only 
the  longing  for  these  prizes  would  become  silent,  but 
the  prizes  themselves  would  appear  worthless.  Liber- 
ate the  workingman  from  his  distrust  of  the  present 
social  order;  let  him  feel  deeply  that  his  duties  are  not 
enforced  slavery  but  a  solemn  offering  to  human  prog- 
ress, which  he  gives  in  glad  cooperation  in  the  spirit 
of  ideal  belief.  At  the  same  time  stop  the  overestima- 
[109] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
tion  of  the  outer  enjoyments,  and  cultivate  the  appre- 
ciation of  the  lasting  values,  and  our  time  of  unrest  will 
come  to  inner  harmony.  But  do  not  believe  that  this 
can  ever  be  done,  if  those  who  are  called  to  be  the 
leaders  of  the  social  group  are  not  models  and  do  not 
by  their  own  lives  give  the  cue  for  this  new  attitude  and 
new  valuation.  As  long  as  they  outdo  one  another 
in  the  wild  chase  of  frivolity  and  seek  in  the  industrial 
work  of  the  nation  only  a  stronghold  for  their  rights  and 
not  a  fountain  spring  of  duties,  as  long  as  they  want  to 
enjoy  instead  of  to  believe,  this  inner  change  can  never 
come  in  the  community.  The  psychologist  can  do 
nothing  but  to  predict  that  no  other  scheme,  no  outer 
reform,  no  new  plan  of  distribution,  can  bring  a  real 
change,  as  every  calculation  which  works  with  outer 
means  to  secure  happiness  must  remain  a  psychological 
illusion.  The  change  from  within  is  the  only  promise 
and  the  only  hope. 


[110] 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  UNDERWORLD 


Ill 

THE  INTELLECTUAL  UNDERWORLD 

THE  public  conscience  of  the  social  world  has  been 
stirred  hi  recent  days  by  the  dangers  which  threaten 
from  an  antisocial  world  that  lurks  hi  darkness.  The 
sociologists  recognize  that  it  is  not  a  question  of  vicious 
and  criminal  individuals,  but  one  of  an  antisocial  atmos- 
phere, of  immoral  traditions  and  surroundings,  through 
which  crime  flourishes  and  vice  is  fostered.  They  speak 
of  a  social  underworld,  and  mean  by  it  that  whole 
pitiable  setting  in  which  the  gangs  of  thieves  and  the 
hordes  of  prostitutes  live  their  miserable  lives.  The 
public  discussions  nowadays  are  full  of  stirring  outcries 
against  the  rapid  spreading  of  vice  in  our  large  cities; 
it  is  a  war  for  clean  living  and  health.  But  after  all  we 
ought  not  to  forget  that  similar  dangers  surround  our 
inner  culture  and  our  spiritual  life,  and  that  an  intellec- 
tual underworld  threatens  our  time,  which  demands  a 
no  less  rigorous  fight  until  its  vice  is  wiped  out.  The 
vice  of  the  social  underworld  gives  a  sham  satisfaction 
[113] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
to  the  human  desire  for  sensual  life;  the  vice  of  the  in- 
tellectual underworld  gives  the  same  sham  fulfilment 
to  the  human  longing  for  knowledge  and  for  truth.  The 
infectious  germs  which  it  spreads  in  the  realm  of  culture 
may  ultimately  be  more  dangerous  to  the  inner  health 
of  the  nation  than  any  physical  diseases.  The  battle 
against  vice  and  crime  in  the  world  of  the  body  ought 
to  be  paralleled  by  a  battle  against  superstition  and 
humbug  in  the  world  of  the  mind.  The  victory  over 
the  social  underworld  would  anyhow  never  be  lasting 
unless  the  intellectual  underworld  were  subjugated 
first.  In  the  atmosphere  of  sham-truth  all  the  antisocial 
instincts  grow  rankly. 

I  know  of  a  large,  beautiful  high  school  in  which  the 
boys  and  girls  are  to  receive  the  decisive  impulses  for 
their  inner  life  from  well-trained  teachers  who  have  had 
a  solid  college  education.  I  have  found  out  that  quite  a 
number  of  these  teachers  are  clients  of  a  medium  who 
habitually  informs  them  as  to  their  future,  and  for  a  dollar 
a  sitting  gives  them  advice  at  every  turn  of  their  lives. 
I  do  not  know  whether  she  takes  it  from  the  tea  leaves 
or  from  an  Egyptian  dream  book  or  from  her  own 
trance  fancies,  but  I  do  know  that  the  prophecies  of 
this  fraud  have  deeply  influenced  some  of  their  lives 
and  shaped  the  faculty  of  the  high  school.  What  does 

[114] 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  UNDERWORLD 
this  mean?  Mature  educators  to  whose  training  so- 
ciety has  devoted  its  fullest  effort  and  who  are  chosen 
to  bring  to  the  youth  the  message  of  earnest  thought 
and  solid  knowledge,  and  whose  intellectual  life  ought 
therefore  to  be  controlled  by  consistent  thinking  and 
real  love  for  knowledge,  fall  back  into  the  lowest  forms 
of  mental  barbarism  and  really  believe  in  the  most  illog- 
ical prostitution  of  truth.  The  double  life  of  Jekyll 
and  Hyde  is  more  natural  than  this.  The  impulse  to 
virtuous  behaviour  and  the  atrocities  of  the  criminal 
may  after  all  be  combined  in  one  character,  but  the 
desire  to  master  the  world  by  a  disciplined  knowledge 
and  to  think  the  universe  in  ideas  of  order  and  law  can- 
not go  together  with  a  real  satisfaction  and  belief  in  the 
chaotic  superstitions  of  mediumistic  humbugs.  Here 
we  have  truly  a  twofold  personality,  one  living  in  a 
world  of  culture  and  the  other  in  an  underworld  of  in- 
tellectual dissipation  and  vice.  It  would  not  be  desir- 
able for  the  high  school  teachers  who  are  to  be  models 
of  virtue  to  live  a  second  life  as  gamblers  and  pick- 
pockets, but  it  is  more  dangerous  if  they  are  the  agents 
of  intellectual  culture  and  indulge  at  the  same  time  in 
intellectual  prostitution. 

No  spirit  of  false  tolerance  ought  any  longer  to  be 
permitted,  when  the  treacherous  danger  has  become  so 
[115] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
nation  wide.  It  is  sufficient  to  take  up  any  newspaper 
between  New  York  and  San  Francisco  and  run  through 
the  advertisements  of  the  spiritualists  and  psychical 
mediums,  the  palmists  and  the  astrologers,  the  spiritual 
advisers  and  the  psychotherapists:  it  is  evident  that  it 
is  a  regular  organized  industry  which  brings  its  steady 
income  to  thousands,  and  which  in  the  bigger  towns  has 
its  red-light  districts  with  its  resorts  for  the  intellectual 
vice.  The  servant  girl  gets  her  information  as  to  the 
fidelity  of  her  lover  for  fifty  cents,  the  clerk  who  wants 
to  bet  on  the  races  pays  five  dollars,  the  great  banker 
who  wants  to  bet  on  stocks  pays  fifty  dollars  for  his 
prophetic  tips,  and  the  widow  who  wants  messages  from 
her  husband  pays  five  hundred  dollars,  but  they  all 
come  and  pay  gladly.  If  this  mood  permeates  the  pub- 
lic of  all  classes,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  cheapest 
spiritualistic  fraud  creeps  into  religious  circles,  that  the 
wildest  medical  humbug  is  successfully  rivalling  the 
work  of  the  scientific  physician,  and  that  the  intellectual 
graft  of  psychical  research  is  beginning  to  corrupt  the 
camps  of  the  educated.  Surely  it  is  a  profitable  busi- 
ness, and  I  know  it  from  inside  information,  as  not  long 
ago  a  very  successful  clairvoyant  came  to  the  Harvard 
Psychological  Laboratory  and  offered  me  a  partnership 
with  half  his  income,  not  because  he  himself  believed 
[116] 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  UNDERWORLD 
much  in  my  psychology,  but  because,  as  he  assured  me, 
there  are  some  clients  who  think  more  highly  of  my 
style  of  psychology  than  of  his,  and  if  we  got  together 
the  business  would  flourish.  He  told  me  just  how  it 
was  to  be  done  and  how  easy  it  is  and  what  persons  fre- 
quent his  parlours.  But  I  have  inside  information  of 
a  very  different  kind  before  me,  if  I  think  of  the  victims 
who  come  to  me  for  help  when  superstition  has  broken 
their  mental  springs.  There  was  a  young  girl  to  whom 
life  was  one  great  joy,  until  for  ten  dollars  she  got  the 
information  that  she  would  die  in  a  very  big  building, 
and  now  she  goes  into  hysterics  when  her  family  tries 
to  take  her  into  a  theatre  or  a  hotel  or  a  railway  station 
or  a  school. 

Indeed  the  psychologist  has  an  unusually  good  chance 
to  get  glimpses  of  this  filthy  underworld,  even  if  he  does 
not  frequent  the  squalid  quarters  of  the  astrologers. 
Bushels  of  mail  bring  this  superstition  and  mental 
crookedness  to  his  study,  and  his  material  allows  him  to 
observe  every  variety  of  illogical  thought.  If  a  letter 
comes  to  his  collection  which  presents  itself  as  a  new 
specimen  that  ought  to  be  analyzed  a  little  further, 
nothing  is  needed  but  a  short  word  of  reply.  It  will 
at  once  bring  a  full  supply  of  twisted  thought,  sufficient 
for  a  careful  dissection.  It  has  been  said  repeatedly 

[117] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
in  the  various  vice  investigations  that  no  one  can  under- 
stand the  ill  fate  of  the  vicious  girls,  unless  he  studies 
carefully  the  men  whom  they  are  to  please.  An  in- 
vestigation into  mental  vice  demands  still  more  an 
understanding  of  those  minds  which  play  the  part  of 
customers.  There  are  too  many  who  cannot  think  in 
straight  lines  and  to  whom  the  most  absurd  linking  of 
facts  is  the  most  satisfactory  answer  in  any  question. 
The  crudeness  of  their  intellect,  which  may  go  together 
with  ample  knowledge  in  other  fields,  predestines  them 
to  be  deceived  and  puts  a  premium  on  the  imposture. 
I  may  try  to  characterize  some  varieties  of  crooked 
thinking  from  chance  tests  of  the  correspondence  with 
which  the  underworld  has  besieged  me.  I  have  only 
the  letters  of  most  recent  date  in  hand. 

I  abstract,  of  course,  from  those  written  by  insane 
individuals.  They  come  plentifully  and  show  all  sorts 
of  distortions  and  impossible  ideas.  But  they  do  not 
belong  here.  The  confused  mind  of  the  patient  is  not 
to  be  held  responsible.  His  absurdities  are  symptoms 
of  disease,  and  they  are  sharply  to  be  separated  from  the 
lack  of  logic  in  the  sound  mind,  just  as  the  impulse  to  kill 
in  paranoia  is  to  be  distinguished  from  the  murderous 
schemes  of  the  criminal.  It  is  generally  not  difficult  to 
recognize  at  once  which  is  which.  I  find  the  most  fre- 

[118] 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  UNDERWORLD 
quent  type  of  letters  from  evidently  diseased  persons 
to  be  writings  like  this:  "Dear  Sir:  I  wish  to  let  you 
know  that  some  young  men  have  a  sort  of  a  comb  ma- 
chine composed  of  wireless  telephone  and  reinforced 
electricity.  They  can  play  this  machine  and  make  a 
person  talk  or  wake  or  go  to  sleep.  They  can  tell 
where  you  are,  even  miles  away.  They  play  in  the 
eyes  and  brain,  I  think.  They  have  two  machines;  so 
they  know  when  the  police  or  anybody  is  coming  to- 
ward their  house.  They  keep  talking  most  of  the  time 
so  as  to  take  up  a  person's  mind.  It  is  about  time  it 
was  stopped,  but  people  don't  understand  such  things 
around  here.  Could  a  wireless  telephone  get  their 
voices?  Hoping  you  will  do  something  to  stop  them, 
I  am  yours,  ONE  WHO  HAS  BEEN  ANNOYED  VERY 
MUCH." 

There  is  no  help  for  such  a  poor  sufferer  except  in  the 
asylum.  Here  we  want  to  deal  not  with  the  patients, 
but  only  with  the  sinners  who  sin  against  logic,  while 
their  minds  are  undiseased. 

There  is  another  large  class  of  correspondents,  which 
is  not  to  be  blamed,  and  which  is  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting contributors  to  the  psychologist's  files.  People 
write  long  discussions  of  theories  which  they  build  up 
on  peculiar  happenings  in  their  minds.  The  theories 

[119] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
themselves  may  be  entirely  illogical,  or  at  least  in  con- 
tradiction to  all  acknowledged  science,  but  such  letters 
are  interesting,  because  they  disclose  abnormal  mental 
states.  Here  it  is  not  real  insanity;  but  all  kinds  of 
abnormal  impulses  or  ideas,  of  psychasthenic  emotions, 
of  neurasthenic  disturbances,  of  hysteric  inhibition,  are 
the  starting  points,  and  it  is  only  natural  that  such 
pathological  intrusions  should  bewilder  the  patient  and 
induce  him  to  form  the  wildest  theories.  Again,  he 
may  believe  in  the  most  improbable  and  most  fantastic 
connection  of  things,  but  this  is  due  to  the  overwhelm- 
ing power  of  disturbances  which  he  is  indeed  unable  to 
explain  to  himself.  I  have  a  whole  set  of  letters  from 
women  who  explain  in  fantastic  theories  their  magical 
power  to  foresee  coming  events;  and  yet  it  is  not  difficult 
to  recognize  as  the  foundation  of  all  such  ideas  some 
well-known  forms  of  memory  disturbance.  Commonly 
it  is  the  widespread  tendency  of  women  to  accompany 
a  scene  with  the  feeling  that  they  have  experienced  it 
once  before.  They  are  few  who  never  have  had  it, 
especially  in  states  of  fatigue;  many  have  it  very  often; 
and  some  are  led  to  trust  it  and  to  become  convinced 
that  they  really  experienced  the  scene,  at  least  in  their 
minds,  beforehand.  This  uncanny  impression  then 
easily  develops  into  untenable  speculations  on  the 
[120] 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  UNDERWORLD 
borderland  of  normal  intellect.  The  letters  which 
approach  those  of  the  insane  most  nearly  come  from 
persons  who  try  to  work  out  a  theory  to  account  for 
hysterical  experiences  which  break  into  their  normaj 
life.  Sometimes  the  most  absurd  explanations  must  be 
acknowledged  as  justified  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
patient.  A  woman  wrote  to  me  that  she  had  the  ab- 
normal power  to  produce  railroad  wrecks  by  her  mere 
will,  while  she  was  lying  at  home  in  bed.  She  wanted 
me  to  hypnotize  her  in  order  to  relieve  her  from  this 
uncanny  power.  She  had  elaborated  this  thought  in 
full  detail.  She  did  not  know,  what  I  found  out  only 
slowly,  that  hi  hysterical  attacks  at  night,  for  which 
every  memory  was  lost  the  next  morning,  she  used  a 
stolen  switch  key  to  open  a  switch,  because  she  was 
angry  with  a  railway  official.  I  will  ignore  all  such 
cases  with  an  abnormal  background  here  and  confine 
myself  to  the  healthy  crowd. 

If  I  were  to  characterize  their  writings  from  an  out- 
side point  of  view,  I  might  first  say  that  their  expres- 
sions are  expansive.  There  is  no  limit  to  their  manu- 
scripts, though  I  have  to  confess  that  an  exposition  of 
eighty-five  hundred  pages  which  has  just  been  an- 
nounced to  me  by  its  author  has  not  yet  reached  me. 
Nor  can  it  be  denied  that  their  relation  to  old- 

[121] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
fashioned  or  to  new-fashioned  spelling  is  not  always  a 
harmonious  one.  Nor  should  I  call  them  always  polite : 
the  criticism  of  my  own  opinions,  which  they  generally 
know  only  from  some  garbled  newspaper  reports,  often 
takes  forms  which  are  not  the  usual  ones  for  scholarly 
correspondence.  "Whether  it  is  your  darkness  or  if  it 
is  the  badness  of  the  police  that  go  around  calling  them- 
selves the  government,  that  probably  ordered  you  to 
put  such  ignorance  in  the  Sunday  article,  I  do  not 
know."  Or  more  straightforward  are  letters  of  this 
type:  " Greeting  —  You  take  the  prize  as  an  educated 
fool.  According  to  reports  to  me  by  less  stupid  and 
more  honest  men  than  you,  the  matter  is  .  .  ." 
It  is  surprising  how  often  the  handwriting  is  pretty, 
coquettish,  or  affected,  but  almost  half  of  my  crank 
correspondence  is  typewritten. 

When  the  newspapers  tell  of  a  mysterious  case,  minds 
of  this  type  immediately  feel  attracted  to  mix  in. 
When  a  few  years  ago  I  published  an  article  disclosing 
the  tricks  of  Madame  Palladino,  I  was  simply  flooded 
with  letters  of  advice  and  of  explanation.  The  same 
thing  occurred  recently  when  the  papers  reported  that  I 
was  experimenting  with  Beulah  Miller.  Now  it  is 
easy  to  understand  that  those  who  fancied  that  the 
Miller  child  had  supernatural  gifts  of  telepathy  and 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  UNDERWORLD 
clairvoyance  would  wish  to  bring  their  questions  to  me 
so  that  I  might  make  Beulah  Miller  trace  their  lost 
bracelets  or  predict  their  fortune  in  the  Stock  Exchange. 
But  I  was  at  a  loss  to  understand  why  so  many  persons 
from  Maine  to  California  felt  tempted  to  write  long 
letters  to  me  in  which  they  told  me  what  kind  of  ques- 
tions I  ought  to  ask  the  child,  as  if  I  could  not  formulate 
a  question  for  myself.  Every  one  expected  a  special 
report  for  himself  with  exact  statements  of  her  answers. 
The  whole  performance  showed  a  lack  of  judgment 
which  is  typical  of  that  lower  intellectual  layer;  and 
yet  the  letters  were  often  written  on  beautifully  mono- 
grammed  letter  paper.  More  often,  however,  my  own 
writings  or  doings  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  case. 
I  am  the  perfectly  innocent  receiver  of  written  messages 
about  anything  between  heaven  and  earth,  while  the 
messages  which  my  correspondents  receive  from  me  are 
not  always  authentic.  One  of  my  psychically  talented 
writers  reports:  "On  May  31st  at  eight  forty-nine 
A.  M.  in  the  midst  of  a  thunderstorm  I  came  into  com- 
munication with  Doctor  Miinsterberg  and  asked  him 
to  send  me  a  message.  He  said,  'The  name  of  my  son 
is  Wilhelm  Miinsterberg.'"  It  is  improbable  that  I 
lied  so  boldly  about  my  family,  even  in  a  telepathic 
message. 

[123] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
I  may  select  a  few  typical  theories,  which  all  come 
from  evidently  otherwise  normal  and  harmless  people. 
I  have  before  me  a  whole  series  of  manuscripts  from  a 
druggist  who  is  sure  that  his  ego  theory  is  "very  near 
the  truth."  It  is  in  itself  very  simple  and  convincing. 
"The  right  and  the  left  cerebral  egos  united  with  one 
sublime  ego  are  in  the  body  in  a  loose  union  in  posses- 
sion of  an  amoeboid  cell.  During  sleep  they  may 
separate.  The  sublime  ego  wanders  through  nerve 
paths  to  the  bowels,  and  the  bowel  experiences  are  the 
dreams."  An  experiment  brought  a  definite  proof  of 
this.  The  druggist  dyed  some  crackers  deep  blue  with 
methylene  blue,  and  later  dreamed  that  a  large  train  of 
blue  food  was  passing  by.  As  each  carriage  of  the  train 
corresponded  to  a  granule  of  starch  in  the  crackers,  he 
was  able  to  figure  that  the  ego  which  saw  those  parts  of 
the  crackers  was  about  one  thousandth  of  an  inch  large. 
"The  fact  of  seeing  in  dreams  is  due  to  vital  force,  the 
peculiar  low  speed  to  the  high  vibration  force  of  living 
albuminoids  emitted  from  every  tendril  of  bioplasm 
and  perceived  by  the  eye  of  the  ego-bion  during  its 
visit."  "Within  the  ego-bion  is  the  ego  itself,  which  is 
much  simpler  looking,  about  one  hundredth  of  a  mi- 
cromillimeter."  I  do  not  want  to  go  into  details  of  how 
these  egos  can  be  transmitted  "by  kiss  or  otherwise" 
[124] 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  UNDERWORLD 
from  one  generation  to  another,  but  I  can  say  that  as 
soon  as  the  reader  has  grasped  the  fundamental  thesis 
of  the  author,  everything  follows  with  perfect  logic. 
The  good  man,  who  is  doubtless  a  faithful  druggist  and 
whose  mind  is  perfectly  clear,  has  simply  twisted  some 
of  the  ideas  which  he  has  gathered  from  his  ample  read- 
ing and  developed  his  pet  theory. 

His  case  is  very  similar  to  that  of  a  dignified,  elderly 
trained  nurse  who  is  faithfully  devoted  to  her  noble  daily 
work  and  who  follows  her  vocation  without  indicating 
to  any  one  that  she  is  the  author  of  a  great  unpub- 
lished philosophical  work.  She  has  spent  twenty-five 
years  of  her  life  on  the  elaboration  of  this  magnum 
opus,  which  is  richly  illustrated.  Everything  in  the 
book  is  consistent  and  in  harmony  with  its  presupposi- 
tions. The  theory  again  is  very  simple;  every  detail  is 
perfectly  convincing,  if  you  acknowledge  the  starting 
point.  As  to  this,  there  may  be  difference  of  opinion. 
The  fundamental  thought  is  that  all  human  souls  are 
born  in  the  forests  of  Central  Africa.  "  Souls  are  sexless 
forces.  Never  is  one  soul  born  into  life.  There  are 
always  two.  Often  we  find  three  pairs  of  almost  the 
same  type  with  but  a  shadow  of  density  to  distinguish 
each  pair.  Man  evolutes  upward  on  the  scale  of  life 
by  two  tribes  of  apes.  Ere  man  becomes  human,  he 

[125] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
represents  one  cell  force.  When  man  takes  the  human 
form  as  Maquake,  he  becomes  a  double  life  cell."  I  do 
not  claim  to  be  an  expert  in  this  system,  but  if  I  under- 
stand the  whole  work  rightly,  the  idea  is  that  any 
human  soul  born  there  by  the  monkeys  in  Africa  has  to 
pass  in  circles  of  one  thousand  years  from  individual  to 
individual,  becoming  at  first  negro,  then  Indian,  then 
Malayan,  then  Hindu,  then  Greek,  Celt,  and  Roman, 
then  Jew,  and  finally  American.  After  a  thousand 
years  the  soul  begins  to  degenerate  and  enters  sinners 
and  criminals.  Which  stage  the  soul  has  reached  can 
easily  be  seen  from  the  finger  nails.  The  chief  illus- 
trations of  the  great  work  were  therefore  drawings  of 
finger  nails  of  all  races.  It  is  a  side  issue  of  the  theory 
that  "souls  once  matured  generally  pass  on  to  another 
star.  The  nearer  the  sun  is  to  the  star  holding  life,  the 
denser  is  all  growth  in  nature."  I  acknowledge  that 
this  view  of  evolution  does  not  harmonize  exactly  with 
my  own,  but  I  cannot  deny  that  the  whole  system  is 
worked  out  with  perfect  consistency,  and  wherever  I 
asked  the  writer  difficult  questions  as  to  some  special 
problems,  she  was  at  once  ready  to  give  the  answers 
with  completely  logical  deduction  from  her  premises. 
She  is  by  no  means  mentally  diseased,  and  she  does  not 
mix  her  theories  with  her  practical  activity.  If  she  sits 

[126] 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  UNDERWORLD 
as  nurse  at  the  bedside  of  a  patient,  she  recognizes  of 
course  from  the  finger  nails  that  this  particular  soul 
may  be  three  or  five  thousand  years  old,  and  accord- 
ingly in  a  decaying  state,  but  that  does  not  interfere 
with  her  conscientious  work  as  a  nurse  and  helper. 

To  be  sure,  not  every  one  spends  twenty-five  years 
on  the  elaboration  of  some  twisted  fancies.  Most  of 
my  correspondents  write  the  monumental  thoughts  of 
their  systems  with  decisive  brevity.  A  physician  in- 
forms me  that  every  thought  and  act  of  our  lives  is 
transfixed  on  the  etheric  vapours  that  surround  our 
earth,  and  that  it  is  therefore  only  natural  that  a  clair- 
voyant is  able  to  see  those  fixed  events  and  write  them 
down  afterward  from  the  ethereal  inscriptions.  An- 
other tells  about  his  discovery  that  the  human  body 
is  a  great  electrical  magnet.  I  am  the  more  glad  to 
make  this  fact  widely  known,  as  the  author  writes  that 
he  has  not  given  it  to  the  public  yet,  as  he  is  not  finan- 
cially able  to  advertise  it.  Yet  he  himself  adds  that 
after  all  it  is  not  necessary  to  advertise  truth.  On 
eight  quarto  pages  he  draws  the  most  evident  conse- 
quences of  his  discovery  and  shows  how  he  is  able  to 
explain  by  it  the  chemical  change  of  each  cell  in  the 
brain  and  to  prove  that  "foolish  so-called  spirits  are 
simply  electrical  demonstrations."  "I  can  demon- 

[127] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
strate  every  current,  nerve  cell,  and  atom  of  the  human 
body.  It  may  seem  strange  to  you  that  I  claim  so 
much,  but  with  the  induction  every  investigation  has 
been  so  easy  for  me.  I  have  never  been  puzzled  for 
any  demonstration  yet,  but  I  am  still  searching  for 
more  knowledge.  Yours  for  investigation.  .  .  ." 
I  may  say  that  this  is  a  feature  common  to  most  of  my 
correspondents  of  this  metaphysical  type.  They  are 
never  "puzzled." 

Nearly  related  to  this  type  of  theories  are  the  sys- 
tems of  astrology;  and  in  our  upper  world  very  few  are 
really  aware  what  a  role  astrology  is  still  playing  in  the 
intellectual  underworld.  Some  of  the  astrological  com- 
munications I  receive  periodically  go  so  far  beyond 
my  understanding  that  I  do  not  even  dare  to  quote 
them.  But  some  of  the  astrological  authors  present 
very  neat  and  clean  theories  which  are  so  simple  and 
so  practical  that  it  is  almost  a  pity  that  they  are  ab- 
surd. For  instance,  I  am  greatly  interested  in  the 
question  of  determining  how  far  the  mind  of  individuals 
is  predisposed  for  particular  vocations,  and  in  the  psy- 
chological laboratory  we  are  busy  with  methods  to 
approach  the  problem.  The  astrologers  have  a  much 
more  convincing  scheme.  My  friend  writes  that  he  has 
observed  "over  two  thousand  cases  wherein  the  dates  of 
[128] 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  UNDERWORLD 
birth  have  been  the  means  to  give  the  position  of  the 
planets  at  the  hour  of  birth,  the  purpose  being  to  ascer- 
tain the  influence  they  had  on  man.  Now  the  furni- 
ture business  calls  /or  an  artistic  temperament,  and  after 
careful  observation  through  birth  dates  it  is  found  that 
the  successful  furniture  men  have  the  planet  Venus  in 
their  nativities.  But  the  Venus  influence  is  prominent 
also  in  other  lines  of  business  such  as  art,  jewellery,  and 
in  all  lines  where  women's  necessities  are  manufac- 
tured. Other  planetary  influences  on  success  in  busi- 
ness are :  Saturn  for  miners,  tanners,  gardeners,  clowns, 
and  beggars;  Mercury  for  teachers,  secretaries,  sta- 
tioners, printers,  and  tailors;  Jupiter  for  clergymen, 
judges,  lawyers,  and  senators;  Mars  for  dentists,  bar- 
bers, cutlers,  carpenters,  and  apothecaries;  Uranus  for 
inventors,  chemists,  occultists,  and  others." 

One  system  which  is  still  more  frequent  than  the 
astrological  is  the  strictly  spiritualistic  one,  which  ex- 
presses itself  in  spirit  returns  and  messages  from  the 
other  world.  Geographically  the  most  favoured  sta- 
tions for  wireless  heavenly  connections  seem  to  be 
Brooklyn,  New  York,  and  Los  Angeles,  California. 
The  adherents  of  this  underworld  philosophy  have  a 
slang  of  their  own,  and  the  result  is  that  their  letters, 
while  they  spring  from  the  deepest  emotions,  sound  as 

[129] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
if  they  were  copied  from  the  same  sample  book.  The 
better  style  begins  about  like  this:  "Knowing  that 
you  are  intensely  interested  in  things  psychological,  I 
beg  to  enclose  you  copies  of  some,  of  the  automatic 
letters  which  I  have  received.  I  have  a  young  lawyer 
friend  in  the  city,  and  he  and  I  can  throw  down  fifteen 
or  twenty  sheets  of  paper  on  a  table,  take  hold  of  hands 
and  get  them  written  full,  and  in  this  way  I  have  re- 
ceived letters  from  Pericles,  Aristides,  Immanuel  Kant, 
and  many  others.  I  got  letters  from  Julia  Ward  Howe 
a  week  after  her  transition,  and  I  got  letters  from  Emer- 
son and  Abraham  Lincoln  by  asking  for  them.  I  enclose 
copy  of  the  last  letter  which  I  received  from  Charlotte 
Cushman,  and  I  think  you  will  agree  there  is  nothing 
foolish  about  it  or  indeed  about  any  of  the  letters.  I 
have  recently  married  again,  and  my  present  wife  is  a 
wonderful  trance  medium,  probably  the  best  means  of 
communication  between  the  two  worlds  living  to-day." 
This  is  not  exceptional,  as  practically  every  one  of  my 
spiritualistic  correspondents  has  some  "best  means  of 
communication  between  the  two  worlds."  The  mes- 
sages themselves  usually  begin:  "My  loved  one,  out  of 
the  realms  of  light  and  truth,  I  come  to  you  .  .  ." 
and  so  on.  If  the  letters  do  not  come  from  the  spirit- 
ualists themselves,  some  of  their  friends  feel  the  need  of 
[130] 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  UNDERWORLD 
turning  my  attention  to  the  "wonderful  psychic  pow- 
ers" of  their  acquaintances.  Not  seldom  the  spirits 
take  a  more  refined  form.  "The  forms  of  the  newly 
dead  come  to  me  in  bulk.  I  see  and  feel  them.  They 
are  purplish  inky  in  colour.  When  a  real  spirit  comes 
to  me  in  white,  I  close  my  eyes.  I  seem  to  have  to. 
The  spirit  or  presence  most  commonly  seen,  I  believe, 
is  a  thought  form.  It  frequently  comes  off  the  cover 
of  a  magazine,  and  were  I  not  getting  wise,  I  would 
think  the  universe  turned  suddenly  to  beauty.  But 
I  am  learning  that  a  person  can  receive  wonderfully 
exaggerated  reports  from  the  very  soul  of  the  artist." 

From  here  we  see  before  us  the  wide  vista  of  the  in- 
dividual gifts  and  talents:  the  underworld  people  are 
sometimes  bragging  of  them,  sometimes  grafting  with 
them,  if  not  blackmailing,  and  often  simply  enjoying 
them  with  the  sweet  feeling  of  superiority.  The  powers 
turn  in  all  valuable  directions.  Here  is  one  who  wishes 
to  know  whether  I  have  ever  heard  of  any  other  "per- 
son who  senses  the  magnetism  of  the  earth  and  is  able 
to  tell  many  kinds  of  earthquakes?  Also  volcanic 
heats?  A  quick  reply  will  favour  me."  Many  have 
the  regular  prophetic  gift;  practically  every  one  of  them 
foresaw  the  assassination  of  McKinley.  Most  of  them, 
however,  are  gifted  in  curing  diseases.  The  typical 

[1311 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
letter  reads  as  follows:  "There  is  a  young  man  living 
here  who  seems  to  be  endowed  with  a  wonderful  occult 
power  by  the  use  of  which  he  is  able  to  diagnose  almost 
any  human  ailment.  He  goes  into  a  trance,  and  while 
in  this  condition  the  name  of  the  subject  is  given  him, 
and  then  without  any  further  questions  he  proceeds  to 
diagnose  his  case  fully  and  correctly  and  prescribes  a 
treatment  for  the  relief  of  the  trouble.  In  every  case 
yet  diagnosed  a  cure  has  almost  immediately  resulted." 
This  kind  of  gift  is  so  frequent  that  it  is  really  surprising 
that  so  many  physicians  still  rely  on  their  clumsier 
method.  Marvellous  also  are  the  effects  which  hyp- 
notism can  secure  in  this  paradise  of  the  ignorant. 
After  having  hypnotized  patients  many  hundred  times, 
I  fancied  that  I  had  a  general  impression  as  to  the  pow- 
ers and  limits  of  hypnotism.  But  there  is  no  end  to  the 
new  information  which  I  get  from  my  hypnotizing  cor- 
respondents. "Has  it  ever  occurred  to  you  that  by 
hypnotism  death  will  be  prevented,  and  all  ills,  mental 
or  otherwise,  be  cured  before  long?  Why  do  I  think 
so?"  Of  course  I  do  not  know  why  she  thinks  so.  I 
usually  do  not  know  why  the  writers  of  the  underworld 
letters  think  so.  Or  rather  I  usually  do  know  that  they 
do  not  think  at  all. 

There  may  be  many  who  will  read  all  this  not  only 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  UNDERWORLD 
with  surprise,  but  with  skepticism.  They  live  their 
intellectually  clean  lives,  dwell  in  safe,  comfortable 
houses  of  the  intellect  and  move  on  well-paved  educa- 
tional streets,  and  never  see  or  hear  anything  of  those 
inhabitants  of  the  intellectual  slums.  If  ever  a  letter 
like  those  which  pour  in  hundreds  to  the  desk  of  the 
psychologist  were  to  stray  into  their  mail,  they  would 
feel  sure  that  they  had  to  do  with  a  lunatic  who  belongs 
in  an  asylum  under  a  physician's  care.  They  have  no 
idea  that  not  only  their  furnaceman  and  washwoman, 
but  also  their  tailor  and  their  watchmaker,  or  perhaps 
the  teacher  of  their  children,  and,  if  they  examine  more 
carefully,  three  of  their  last  dinner  guests,  are  strolling 
for  hours  or  for  a  night,  or  living  for  seasons,  if  not  for  a 
lifetime,  in  that  world  of  superstition  and  anti-intellec- 
tual mentality.  Such  people  are  not  ill;  they  are  per- 
sonally not  even  cranks;  they  are  simply  confused  and 
unable  to  live  an  ordered  intellectual  life.  Their  char- 
acter and  temperament  and  their  personality  in  every 
other  respect  may  be  faultless,  but  their  ideas  are 
chaotic.  They  bring  together  the  contradictory  and 
make  contrasts  out  of  the  identical,  and,  far  from  any 
sound  religious  belief  or  any  true  metaphysical  philoso- 
phy, they  simply  mix  any  mystical  whims  into  the 
groups  of  thought  which  civilization  has  brought  into 

[133] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
systematic  order.    Instead  of  trying  to  learn,  they  are 
always  longing  for  some  illegitimate  intellectual  profit; 
they  are  always  trying  to  pick  the  pocket  of  the  abso- 
lute. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  recognize  the  social  conditions 
from  which  this  tendency  springs.  The  fundamental 
one,  after  all,  is  the  widely  spread  lack  of  respect  for  the 
expert.  Such  a  lack  easily  results  from  democratic  life, 
as  democracy  encourages  the  belief  that  every  one  can 
judge  about  everything  and  can  decide  from  his  own 
resources  what  ought  to  be  thought  and  what  ought  to 
be  done.  Yet  no  one  can  claim  that  it  is  truly  a  part  of 
democracy  itself  and  that  the  democratic  spirit  would 
suffer  if  this  view  were  suppressed.  On  the  contrary, 
democracy  can  never  be  fully  successful  and  can  never 
be  carried  through  in  consistent  purity  until  this  great- 
est danger  of  the  democratic  spirit  of  society  is  com- 
pletely overcome  and  repressed  by  an  honest  respect  for 
the  expert  and  a  willing  subordination  of  judgment  to 
his  better  knowledge.  Another  condition  which  makes 
our  country  a  favourite  playground  for  fantastic  vaga- 
ries is  the  strong  emphasis  on  the  material  sides  of  life, 
on  business  and  business  success.  The  result  is  a  kind 
of  contrast  effect.  As  the  surface  of  such  a  rushing 
business  life  lacks  everything  which  would  satisfy  the 
[134] 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  UNDERWORLD 
deeper  longings  of  the  soul,  the  effort  to  create  an  inner 
world  is  readily  pushed  to  mystical  extremes  in  which 
all  contact  with  the  practical  world  is  lost,  and  finally 
all  solid  knowledge  disregarded  and  caricatured.  The 
newspapers  have  their  great  share,  too.  Any  absurdity 
which  a  crank  anywhere  in  the  world  brings  forth  is 
heralded  with  a  joy  in  the  sensational  impossibilities 
which  must  devastate  the  mind  of  the  naive  reader. 

But  whatever  the  sources  of  this  prevailing  super- 
stition may  be,  there  ought  to  be  no  disagreement  about 
its  intellectual  sinfulness  and  its  danger  to  society.  We 
see  some  alarming  consequences  in  the  growth  of  the 
revolt  against  scientific  medicine.  Millions  of  good 
Americans  do  not  want  to  know  anything  about  phy- 
sicians who  have  devoted  their  lives  to  the  study  of 
medicine,  but  prefer  any  quack  or  humbug,  any  healer 
or  mystic.  Yet  for  a  queer  reason  the  case  of  the  treat- 
ment of  diseases  shows  the  ruinous  results  of  this  so- 
cial procedure  very  slowly.  Every  scientific  physician 
knows  that  many  diseases  can  be  cured  by  autosug- 
gestion in  emotional  excitement,  and  if  this  belief  in  the 
quack  produces  the  excitement  and  the  suggestion,  the 
patient  may  really  be  cured,  not  on  account  but  in  spite 
of  the  quack  who  treats  him.  The  whole  misery  of  this 
antimedical  movement  is  therefore  somewhat  veiled  and 

[135] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
alleviated.  But  this  is  not  so  in  the  fields  of  real  cul- 
ture and  knowledge.  The  belief  in  the  absurdities 
there  has  not  even  an  autosuggestive  value.  It  is 
simply  destructive  to  the  life  of  civilized  society.  It  is 
absurd  for  us  to  put  our  best  energies  to  work  to  build 
up  a  splendid  system  of  education  for  the  youth  of  the 
whole  nation,  and  at  the  same  time  to  allow  its  structure 
to  be  undermined  by  the  millionfold  intellectual  de- 
pravity. 

Of  course  it  may  be  difficult  to  say  what  ought  to  be 
done.  I  feel  sure  that  society  ought  to  suppress  with 
relentless  energy  all  those  parlours  of  the  astrologists 
and  palmists,  of  the  scientific  mediums  and  spiritualists, 
of  the  quacks  and  prophets.  Their  announcements  by 
signs  or  in  the  public  press  ought  to  be  stopped,  and 
ought  to  be  treated  by  the  postal  department  of  the 
government  as  the  advertisements  of  other  fraudulent 
enterprises  are  treated.  A  large  role  in  the  campaign 
would  have  to  be  played  by  the  newspapers,  but  their 
best  help  would  be  rendered  by  negative  action,  by  not 
publishing  anything  of  a  superstitious  and  mystical 
type.  The  most  important  part  of  the  fight,  however, 
is  to  recognize  the  danger  clearly,  to  acknowledge  it 
frankly,  and  to  see  with  open  eyes  how  alarmingly  the 
evil  has  grown  around  us.  No  one  will  fancy  that  any 
[136] 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  UNDERWORLD 
social  schemes  can  be  sufficient  to  bring  superstition  to 
an  end,  any  more  than  any  one  can  expect  that  the  pres- 
ent fight  against  city  vice  will  forever  put  a  stop  to 
sexual  immorality.  But  that  surely  cannot  be  an  argu- 
ment for  giving  up  the  battle  against  the  moral  perversi- 
ties of  metropolitan  life.  The  fact  that  we  cannot 
be  entirely  successful  ought  still  less  to  be  an  argu- 
ment for  any  leniency  with  the  intellectual  perversities 
and  the  infectious  diseases  the  germs  of  which  are  dis- 
seminated in  our  world  of  honest  culture  by  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  cultural  underworld. 


[137] 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 


IV 
THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

THE  harmony  and  soundness  of  society  depend  upon 
its  inner  unity  of  mind.  Social  organization  does  not 
mean  only  an  external  fitting  together,  but  an  internal 
equality  of  mind.  Men  must  understand  one  another 
in  order  to  form  a  social  unit,  and  such  understanding 
certainly  means  more  than  using  the  same  words  and  the 
same  grammar.  They  must  be  able  to  grasp  other  men's 
point  of  view,  they  must  have  a  common  world  in  which 
to  work,  and  this  demands  that  they  mould  the  world 
in  the  same  forms  of  thought.  If  one  calls  green  what 
another  calls  sour,  and  one  feels  as  noise  what  another 
feels  as  toothache,  they  cannot  enter  into  a  social 
group.  Yet  it  is  no  less  confusing  and  no  less  antisocial 
if  the  world  which  one  sees  as  a  system  of  causes  and 
effects  is  to  another  a  realm  of  capricious,  causeless,  zig- 
zag happenings.  The  mental  links  which  join  society  are 
threatened  if  some  live  with  their  thoughts  in  a  world  of 
order  and  natural  law,  and  others  in  a  mystical  chaos. 

[1411 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
This  has  nothing  to  do  with  differences  of  opin- 
ion. Society  profits  from  contrasting  views,  from 
discussion  and  struggle.  The  opposing  parties  in  a 
real  debate  understand  each  other  well  and  are  working 
with  the  same  logic  and  the  same  desire  for  order  of 
thought.  This  contrast  between  order  and  mysticism 
has  still  less  to  do  with  the  difference  of  knowledge  and 
belief  in  a  higher  religious  and  philosophical  sense. 
There  is  no  real  antagonism  between  science  and  relig- 
ion, between  experience  and  philosophical  speculation. 
They  point  to  each  other,  they  demand  each  other, 
and  no  social  question  is  involved  when  the  interests 
of  one  man  emphasize  more  the  scholarly  search  for 
scientific  truth,  and  those  of  another  concentrate 
throughout  his  lifework  on  the  emotional  wisdom  of 
religion.  It  is  quite  different  with  mysticism  and  sci- 
ence; they  are  not  two  parties  of  a  debate  on  equal 
terms.  They  exclude  each  other,  as  the  mystic  pro- 
jects his  feeling  interests  into  those  objects  which  the 
scientist  tries  to  analyze  and  to  understand  as  effects 
of  causes.  Nothing  is  a  safer  test  of  the  cultural  devel- 
opment of  a  society  than  the  instinct  for  the  difference 
between  religion  and  superstition.  Mysticism  is  a 
systematized  superstition.  It  never  undermines  the 
true  interests  of  society  more  than  when  it  goes  to  work 

[1421 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

with  pseudo-scientific  tools.  Its  most  repellent  form, 
that  of  sheer  spiritualism,  has  in  recent  years  declined 
somewhat,  and  the  organizations  for  analogical, 
psychical  research  eke  out  a  pitiable  existence  nowa- 
days. But  the  community  of  the  silent  or  noisy  be- 
lievers in  telepathy,  mystical  foresight,  clairvoyance, 
and  wonder  workers  seems  to  increase. 

The  scientific  psychologist  might  have  a  twofold 
contact  with  such  movements.  His  most  natural  in- 
terest is  that  of  studying  the  mental  makeup  of  those 
who  chase  this  will-o'-the-wisp.  Their  mental  vagaries 
and  superstitious  fancies  are  quite  fascinating  material 
for  his  dissection.  But  for  the  interests  of  society  an 
entirely  different  effort  is,  after  all,  more  consequential. 
The  psychologist  has  no  right  to  avoid  the  trouble  of 
examining  conspicuous  cases  which  superficially  seem 
to  endorse  the  fantastic  theories  of  the  mentally  un- 
trained. Such  an  investigation  is  his  share,  as  indeed 
mental  occurrences  generally  stand  in  the  centre  of  the 
alleged  wonderful  facts.  From  this  feeling  of  social 
responsibility  some  years  ago  I  approached  the  hys- 
terical trickster,  Madame  Palladino,  who  had  so  much 
inflamed  the  mystical  imagination  of  the  country,  and 
from  this  interest  in  the  social  aspect  I  undertook  again 
recently  a  research  into  the  mental  powers  of  Beulah 

[143] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
Miller,  who  was  well  on  the  way  to  bewilder  the  whole 
nation  and  thus  to  stir  up  the  always  latent  mystic  in- 
clinations of  the  community.  It  is  a  typical  specimen 
of  those  cases  which  can  easily  upset  the  loosely  rea- 
soning public  and  do  tremendous  harm  to  the  mental 
unity  of  the  social  organism.  It  seems  worth  while 
to  illuminate  it  in  full  detail. 

Indeed,  since  the  days  when  Madame  Eusapia  Palla- 
dino  stirred  the  whole  country  with  her  marvellous 
mystic  powers,  no  case  of  psychical  mystery  has  en- 
gaged the  interest  of  the  nation  as  that  of  little  Beulah 
Miller  in  Warren,  Rhode  Island,  has  done.  The  story 
of  her  wonderful  performances  has  become  a  favourite 
feature  of  the  Sunday  papers,  and  the  small  New  Eng- 
land town  for  the  first  time  in  its  long  history  has  been 
in  the  limelight.  The  reporters  have  made  then*  pil- 
grimages, and  every  one  has  returned  bewildered  and 
amazed.  Here  at  last  the  truth  of  telepathy  was 
proved.  Sworn  affidavits  of  reliable  persons  removed 
the  last  doubts;  and  I  myself,  with  my  long  training  as 
a  scientist,  had  to  confess,  when  for  the  first  time  I  had 
spent  a  few  hours  with  Beulah  Miller,  that  I  was  as 
deeply  startled  and  overcome  with  wonder  as  I  was  after 
the  first  night  with  Eusapia  Palladino.  Yet  what  a 
contrast!  There  the  elderly,  stout  Italian  woman  at  a 

[144] 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

midnight  hour,  in  dimly  lighted  rooms,  in  disreputable 
New  York  quarters,  where  the  palmists  and  mediums 
live  in  their  world  of  sham  psychology,  sitting  in  a 
trance  state  at  a  table  surrounded  by  spiritualistic 
believers  who  had  to  pay  their  entrance  fees;  here  a 
little,  naive,  ten-year-old  girl  among  her  toys  in  the 
kitchen  of  her  parents'  modest  white  cottage  in  a  lovely 
country  village!  I  never  felt  a  more  uncanny,  nerve- 
irritating  atmosphere  than  in  Palladino's  squalid 
quarters,  and  I  do  not  remember  more  idyllic,  peaceful 
surroundings  than  when  I  sat  between  Beulah  and  her 
sister  through  bright  sunny  mornings  in  their  mother's 
home  with  their  cat  beside  them  and  the  pet  lamb  com- 
ing into  the  room  from  the  meadow.  There  everything 
suggested  fraud,  and  when  at  my  second  seance  her 
foot  was  caught  behind  the  curtain  and  the  whole  hum- 
bug exposed,  it  was  exactly  what  I  had  expected.  But 
here  everything  breathed  sincerity  and  naivete  and 
absence  of  fraud  —  yet  my  mere  assurance  cannot  con- 
vince a  skeptic;  we  must  examine  the  case  carefully. 

The  claims  are  very  simple:  Here  is  a  school  child 
of  ten  years  who  is  able  to  read  in  the  mind  of  any  one 
present  anything  of  which  he  is  thinking.  If  you  take 
a  card  from  a  pack  and  look  at  it,  and  still  better  if 
several  people  look  at  it,'  and  best  of  all  if  her  mother 

[145] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
or  sister  looks  at  it,  too,  Beulah  will  say  at  once  which 
card  it  is,  although  she  may  stand  in  the  farthest  corner 
of  the  room.  She  will  give  you  the  date  on  any  coin 
which  you  have  in  hand;  in  a  book  she  will  tell  you  the 
particular  word  at  which  you  are  looking.  Indeed,  a 
sworn  affidavit  reports  still  more  surprising  feats. 
Beulah  gave  correctly  the  name  of  the  reporter  whom 
nobody  else  knew  and  the  name  of  the  New  York  paper 
for  which  she  is  writing.  At  school  she  reads  words 
written  on  the  blackboard  with  her  back  turned  to  it. 
At  home  she  knows  what  any  visitor  is  hiding  in  his 
pocket. 

The  serious-minded  man  who  is  disgusted  with  spirit- 
ualistic charlatans  and  their  commercial  humbug  is  natu- 
rally inclined  here,  too,  at  once  to  offer  the  theory  that 
all  is  fraud  and  that  a  detective  would  be  the  right  man 
to  investigate  the  case.  When  the  newspapers  dis- 
covered that  I  had  begun  to  study  the  girl,  I  received 
from  many  sides  letters  with  suggestions  to  look  for 
certain  devices  with  which  stage  performers  carry  out 
such  tricks,  such  as  marked  cards  and  the  equipment  of 
the  magician.  But  whoever  thinks  of  fraud  here  mis- 
understands the  whole  situation.  The  psychical  powers 
of  Beulah  Miller  were  not  brought  before  the  public  by 
the  child  or  her  family;  there  was  no  desire  for  noto- 
[1461 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

riety,  and  in  spite  of  the  very  modest  circumstances  in 
which  this  carpenter's  family  has  to  live,  the  facts 
became  known  before  any  commercial  possibility  sug- 
gested itself . 

The  mother  was  startled  by  Beulah's  psychical  gifts 
because  she  noticed  two  years  ago  that  when  the  family 
was  playing  "Old  Maid"  Beulah  always  knew  in  whose 
hands  the  dangerous  queen  was  to  be  found.  Then 
they  began  to  experiment  with  cards  hi  the  family 
circle,  and  her  ability  to  know  of  what  the  mother  or 
the  sister  was  thinking  became  more  and  more  inter- 
esting to  them.  Slowly  her  school  friends  began  to 
notice  it,  and  children  in  the  Sunday-school  told  the 
minister  about  Beulah's  queer  mind-reading.  All  this 
time  no  neTspaper  had  known  about  it.  One  day  the 
minister,  when  he  passed  the  house,  entered  and  inquired 
whether  those  rumours  were  true.  He  had  a  little  glass 
full  of  honey  in  his  pocket,  and  Beulah  spelled  the 
word  honey  at  once.  He  made  some  tests  with  coins, 
and  every  one  was  successful.  This  minister,  Rev.  H. 
W.  Watjen,  told  this  to  his  friend  Judge  Mason,  who 
has  lived  in  Warren  for  more  than  thirty  years,  and  then 
both  the  minister  and  the  judge  visited  repeatedly  the 
village  where  the  Millers  live,  performed  a  large  number 
of  experiments  with  cards  and  coins  and  words,  and 

[147] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
became  the  friendly  advisers  of  the  mother,  who  was 
still  troubled  by  her  doubt  whether  these  supernatural 
gifts  of  the  child  came  from  God  or  from  the  devil. 
Only  through  the  agency  of  these  two  well-known  men, 
the  Baptist  minister  and  the  judge,  was  the  public 
informed  that  a  mysterious  case  existed  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Warren,  and  when  the  newspapers  began 
to  send  their  reporters  and  strangers  came  to  see  the 
wonder,  these  two  men  decided  who  should  see  the 
child.  Of  course,  commercial  propositions,  invitations 
to  give  performances  on  the  vaudeville  stage,  soon  be- 
gan to  pour  in,  but  with  indignation  the  mother  refused 
to  listen  to  any  such  idea.  Because  of  my  scientific 
interest  in  such  psychological  puzzles,  the  judge  and  the 
minister  turned  to  me  to  investigate  the  case.  It  is 
evident  that  this  whole  social  situation  lacks  every  con- 
ceivable motive  for  fraud. 

But  this  impression  was  strongly  heightened  by  the 
behaviour  of  the  family  and  of  the  child  during  the 
study  which  I  carried  on  in  the  three  weeks  following. 
The  mother,  the  twelve-year-old  sister  Gladys,  and 
Beulah  herself  were  most  willing  to  agree  to  anything 
which  would  make  the  test  difficult,  and  they  them- 
selves asked  to  have  everything  tried  with  no  member 
of  the  family  in  the  room.  Beulah  was  quite  happy  to 

[148] 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

show  her  art  under  unaccustomed  conditions  like  hav- 
ing her  eyes  covered  with  thick  bandages.  When  inad- 
vertently some  one  turned  a  card  so  that  she  could  see 
it,  she  was  the  first  to  break  out  into  childish  laughter 
at  her  having  seen  it.  In  short,  everything  indicated 
such  perfect  sincerity,  and  the  most  careful  examina- 
tion yielded  so  absolutely  no  trace  of  intentional  fraud, 
that  I  can  vouch  for  the  honesty  of  the  intentions  of  all 
concerned  in  the  experiments  carried  on  so  far. 

If  fraud  and  humbug  may  certainly  be  excluded,  the 
wiseacres  will  say  that  the  results  must  then  have 
been  a  matter  of  chance  coincidence.  No  one  can  deny 
that  chance  may  sometimes  bring  surprising  results. 
Dreams  of  far-distant  accidents  come  true,  and  yet  no 
one  who  considers  those  millions  of  dreams  which  do 
not  come  true  and  which  therefore  remain  disregarded 
will  acknowledge  any  prophetic  power  in  sleep.  It  may 
happen,  if  you  are  asked  to  call  a  name  or  a  figure  of 
which  another  man  is  thinking,  that  you  will  strike  the 
right  one.  Moreover,  recent  experiments  have  shown 
that  there  is  much  natural  uniformity  in  the  thoughts  of 
men.  Certain  figures  or  names  or  things  more  readily 
rush  to  the  mind  than  others.  Hence  the  chances  that 
two  persons  will  be  thinking  of  the  same  figure  are  much 
larger  than  would  appear  from  the  mere  calculation  of 

[149] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
probabilities.  Yet  even  if  we  make  the  largest  possi- 
ble concession  to  happy  coincidences,  there  cannot  re- 
main the  slightest  doubt  that  the  experiments  carried 
on  under  standard  conditions  yielded  results  the  cor- 
rectness of  which  endlessly  surpasses  any  possible 
accidental  outcome.  We  may  take  a  typical  illustra- 
tion: I  drew  cards  which  she  could  not  possibly  see, 
while  they  were  shown  to  the  mother  and  sister  sitting 
next  to  me,  Beulah  sitting  on  the  other  side  of  the  room. 
The  first  was  a  nine  of  hearts;  she  said  nine  of  hearts. 
The  next  was  six  of  clubs,  to  which  she  said  first  six  of 
spades;  when  told  it  was  not  spades,  she  answered 
clubs.  The  next  was  two  of  diamonds;  her  first  figure 
was  four;  when  told  that  it  was  wrong,  she  corrected 
herself  two,  and  added  diamonds.  The  next  was  nine 
of  clubs,  which  she  gave  correctly;  seven  of  spades, 
she  said  at  first  seven  of  diamonds,  then  spades;  jack 
of  spades,  she  gave  correctly  at  once,  and  so  on. 

One  other  series:  We  had  little  cardboard  squares 
on  each  of  which  was  a  large  single  letter.  I  drew  any 
three,  put  them  into  the  cover  of  a  box,  and  while  the 
mother,  Gladys,  and  I  were  looking  at  the  three  letters, 
Beulah,  sitting  beside  us,  looked  at  the  ceiling.  The 
first  were  R-T-O.  She  said  R-T-I.  When  told  it  was 
wrong,  she  added  O.  The  next  were  S-U-T;  she 

[150] 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

gave  S-U,  and  then  wrongly  R  P  Q,  and  finally  T. 
The  next  were  N-A-R;  she  gave  G  N-A-S  R.  The  fol- 
lowing D-W-O  she  gave  D-W,  but  could  not  find  the 
last  letter.  It  is  evident  that  every  one  of  the  cards 
gave  her  fifty-two  chances,  and  not  more  than  one  in 
fifty-two  would  have  been  correct  if  it  were  only  guess- 
ing, and  as  to  the  letters,  not  more  than  one  among 
twenty-six  would  have  been  chosen  correctly  by  chance. 
The  given  example  demonstrates  that  of  five  cards  she 
gave  three  correctly,  two  hah*  correctly,  and  those  two 
mistakes  were  rectified  after  the  first  wrong  guess. 
The  second  experiment  demanded  from  her  four  times 
three  letters.  Of  these  twelve  letters,  six  were  right  at 
the  first  guess  and  five  after  one  or  two  wrong  trials. 
Taking  only  this  little  list  of  card  and  letter  experiments 
together,  we  can  say  that  the  probabilities  are  only  one 
to  many  billions  that  such  a  result  would  ever  come  by 
chance. 

Yet  such  correctness  was  not  exceptional.  On  the 
contrary,  I  have  no  series  performed  under  these  con- 
ditions which  did  not  yield  as  favourable  an  outcome  as 
this.  Some  were  even  much  more  startling.  Once  she 
gave  six  cards  in  succession  correctly.  It  was  no  differ- 
ent with  word  experiments.  The  printed  word  at  which 
the  sister  and  I  looked  was  stall;  she  spelled  E  S-T-0 

[151] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
A-R  I  L-L.  And  when  the  word  was  steam,  she 
spelled  L  S-N  K  T-O  A  E-A-M;  when  it  was  glass,  S  G- 
L-R  A-S.  Whenever  a  letter  was  wrong,  she  was  told 
so  and  was  allowed  a  second  or  a  third  choice,  but  never 
more  than  three.  It  is  evident  from  these  three  illus- 
trations that  she  gave  the  right  letter  in  the  first  place 
six  times,  and  that  the  right  letter  was  her  second  choice 
four  times,  and  her  third  choice  three  times,  while  no 
letter  was  missed  in  three  choices.  Cases  of  this  type 
again  could  never  occur  by  mere  chance.  The  number 
of  successful  strokes  in  this  last  experiment  might  be 
belittled  by  the  claim  that  the  last  letters  of  the  word 
were  guessed  when  the  first  letters  had  been  found. 
But  this  was  not  the  case.  First,  even  such  a  guess 
would  have  been  chance.  The  word  might  have  been 
grave  instead  of  grass,  or  star  instead  of  stall.  What  is 
much  more  important,  however,  is  that  a  large  number 
of  other  cases  proved  that  she  was  not  aware  of  the 
words  at  all,  but  spelled  the  letters  without  reference 
to  their  forming  a  word.  Once  I  wrote  Chicago  on  a 
pad.  The  mother  and  sister  gazed  at  the  word,  and 
Beulah  spelled  correctly  C-H-I-C-A-G,  but  made  eight 
wrong  efforts  before  she  found  the  closing  O.  In  other 
cases,  she  did  not  notice  that  the  word  was  completed, 
and  was  trying  to  fish  up  still  other  letters  from  her 
[152] 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

mind.  Everything  showed  that  the  word  as  a  word 
did  not  come  to  her  mind,  but  only  the  single  letters. 
I  leave  entirely  out  of  consideration  the  marvels  of 
mind-reading  which  were  secured  by  the  judge  and  the 
minister,  the  male  and  female  newspaper  reporters, 
before  I  took  charge  of  the  study  of  the  case.  I  rely 
only  on  what  I  saw  and  of  which  I  took  exact  notes. 
I  wrote  down  every  wrong  letter  and  every  wrong  figure, 
and  base  my  calculation  only  on  this  entirely  reliable 
material.  Nevertheless,  I  must  acknowledge  it  as  a 
fact  beyond  doubt  that  such  results  as  I  got  regularly 
could  never  possibly  have  been  secured  by  mere  coin- 
cidence and  chance.  As  chance  and  fraud  are  thus 
equally  out  of  the  question,  we  are  obliged  to  seek  for 
another  explanation. 

There  is  one  explanation  which  offers  itself  most 
readily:  We  saw  that  in  order  to  succeed,  some  one 
around  her,  preferably  the  mother  and  sister,  who  stand 
nearest  to  her  heart,  have  to  know  the  words  or  the 
cards.  Those  visual  images  must  be  in  some  one's  mind, 
and  she  has  the  unusual  power  of  being  able  to  read 
what  is  in  the  minds  of  those  others.  Such  an  expla- 
nation even  seems  to  some  a  very  modest  claim,  almost 
a  kind  of  critical  and  skeptical  view.  The  judge  and 
the  minister,  for  instance,  in  accepting  this  idea  of  her 

[153] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
mind-reading,  felt  conservative,  as  through  it  they  dis- 
claimed any  belief  in  mysterious  clairvoyance  and  tele- 
pathic powers.  In  the  newspaper  stories,  where  the 
mysteries  grew  with  the  geographical  distance  from 
Rhode  Island,  Beulah  was  said  to  be  able  to  tell  names 
or  dates  or  facts  which  no  one  present  knew.  It  was 
asserted  that  she  could  give  the  dates  on  the  coins 
which  any  one  had  in  his  pocket  without  the  possessor 
himself  knowing  them,  or  that  she  could  give  a  word  in 
a  book  on  which  some  one  was  holding  his  finger  with- 
out reading  it.  No  wonder  that  the  public  felt  sure 
that  she  could  just  as  well  discover  secrets  which  no 
one  knows  and  be  aware  of  far-distant  happenings. 
It  is  only  one  step  from  this  to  the  belief  in  a  prophetic 
foresight  of  what  is  to  come.  For  most  unthinking 
people,  mind-reading  leads  in  this  fashion  over  to  the 
whole  world  of  mysticism.  In  sharp  contrast  to  such 
vagaries,  the  critical  observers  like  the  judge  and  the 
minister  insisted  that  there  was  no  trace  of  such  pro- 
phetic gifts  or  of  such  telepathic  wonders  to  be  found, 
and  that  everything  resolves  itself  simply  into  mere 
mind-reading.  Some  one  in  the  neighbourhood  must 
have  the  idea  in  mind  and  must  fixedly  think  of  it. 
Only  then  will  it  arise  in  Beulah's  consciousness. 
But  have  we  really  a  right  to  speak  of  mind-reading 
[154] 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

itself  as  if  it  were  such  a  simple  process,  perhaps  un- 
usual, but  not  surprising,  something  like  a  slightly 
abnormal  state?  If  we  look  at  it  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  scientist,  we  should  say,  on  the  contrary,  that 
there  is  a  very  sharp  boundary  line  which  separates 
mind-reading  from  all  the  experiences  which  the  scien- 
tific psychologist  knows.  The  psychologist  has  no 
difficulty  in  understanding  mental  diseases  like  hys- 
teria or  abnormal  states  like  hypnotism,  or  any  other 
unusual  variation  of  mental  life.  The  same  principles 
by  which  he  explains  the  ordinary  life  of  the  mind  are 
sufficient  to  give  account  of  all  the  strange  and  rare 
occurrences.  But  when  he  comes  to  mind-reading,  an 
entirely  new  point  of  view  is  chosen.  It  would  mean 
a  complete  break  with  everything  which  science  has 
found  in  the  mental  world.  The  psychologist  has  never 
discovered  a  mental  content  which  was  not  the  effect 
or  the  after-effect  of  the  stimulation  of  the  senses. 
No  man  born  blind  has  ever  by  his  own  powers  brought 
the  colour  sensations  to  his  mind,  and  no  communica- 
tion from  without  was  ever  traced  which  was  not  car- 
ried over  the  path  of  the  senses.  The  world  which  is  in 
the  mind  of  my  friend,  in  order  to  reach  my  mind,  must 
stimulate  his  brain,  and  that  brain  excitement  must  lead 
to  the  contraction  of  his  mouth  muscles,  and  that  must 

[155] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
stir  the  air  waves  which  reach  my  ear  drum,  and  the 
excitement  must  be  carried  from  my  ear  to  the  brain, 
where  the  mental  ideas  arise.  No  abnormal  states  like 
hypnotism  change  in  the  least  this  procedure.  But  if 
we  fancy  that  the  mere  mental  idea  in  one  man  can 
start  the  same  idea  in  another,  we  lack  every  possible 
means  to  connect  such  a  wonder  with  anything  which 
the  scientist  so  far  acknowledges. 

To  be  sure,  every  sincere  scholar  devoted  to  truth  has 
to  yield  to  the  actual  facts.  We  cannot  stubbornly  say 
that  the  facts  do  not  exist  because  they  do  not  har- 
monize with  what  is  known  so  far.  The  psychologist 
would  not  necessarily  be  at  the  end  of  his  wit  if  the 
developments  of  to-morrow  proved  that  mind-reading 
in  Beulah  Miller's  case,  or  in  any  other  case,  is  a  fact 
beyond  doubt.  He  might  argue  that  all  previous 
knowledge  was  based  on  a  wrong  idea  and  that,  for 
instance,  other  processes  go  on  in  the  brain,  which  can 
be  transmitted  from  organism  to  organism  like  wireless 
telegraphic  waves  without  the  perception  of  the  senses. 
If  these  other  processes  were  conceived  as  the  foun- 
dation of  mental  images,  the  scientific  psychological 
scholar  of  the  future  might  possibly  work  out  a  consis- 
tent theory  and  all  the  previously  known  facts  might 
then  be  translated  into  the  language  of  the  new  science. 

[156] 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

Whether  in  this  or  a  similar  way  we  should  ever  come 
to  really  satisfactory  results,  no  one  can  foresee,  but 
at  least  it  is  certain  that  this  would  involve  a  complete 
giving  up  of  everything  which  scientists  have  so  far 
held  to  be  right.  Certainly  in  the  history  of  civiliza- 
tion great  revolutions  in  science  have  happened.  The 
astronomers  had  to  begin  almost  anew;  why  cannot 
the  psychologists  turn  around  and  acknowledge  that 
they  have  been  entirely  wrong  so  far  and  that  they  must 
begin  once  more  at  the  beginning  and  rewrite  all  which 
they  have  so  far  taken  to  be  truth? 

Certainly  the  psychologists  are  no  cowards.  They 
would  not  hesitate  to  declare  their  mental  bankruptcy 
if  the  progress  of  truth  demanded  it.  But  at  least  we 
must  be  entirely  clear  that  this  is  indeed  the  situation 
and  that  no  step  on  the  track  of  mind-reading  can 
be  taken  without  giving  up  everything  which  we  have 
so  far  held  to  be  true.  And  it  is  evident  that  such  a 
radical  break  with  the  whole  past  of  human  science  can 
be  considered  only  if  every  other  effort  for  explanation 
fails,  and  if  it  seems  really  impossible  to  understand  the 
facts  in  the  light  of  all  which  science  has  already  ac- 
complished. If  Beulah  Miller's  little  hands  are  to  set 
the  torch  to  the  whole  pile  of  our  knowledge,  we  ought 
first  to  be  perfectly  sure  that  there  is  really  nothing 

[157] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
worth  saving.     We  cannot  accept  the  theory  of  the 
apostles  of  mind-reading  until  we  know   surely    that 
Beulah  Miller  can  receive  communications  which  can- 
not possibly  be  explained  with  the  means  of  science. 

Now  we  all  know  one  kind  of  mind-reading  which 
looks  very  astounding  and  yet  which  there  is  no  diffi- 
culty at  all  in  explaining.     It  is  a  favourite  performance 
on  the  stage,  and  not  seldom  tried  as  a  parlour  game. 
I  refer  to  the  kind  of  mind-reading  in  which  one  per- 
son thinks  of  a  hidden  coin,  and  the  other  holds  his 
wrist  and  is  then  able  to  find  the  secreted  object. 
There  is  no  mystery  in  such  apparent  transmission  of 
the  idea,  because  it  is  the  result  of  small  unintentional 
movements  of  the  arm.     The  one  who  thinks  hard  of 
the  corner  of  the  room  in  which  the  coin  is  placed  can- 
not help  giving  small  impulses  in  that  direction.     He 
himself  is  not  aware  of  these  faint  movements,  but  the 
man  who  has  a  fine  sense  of  touch  becomes  conscious 
of  these  motions  in  the  wrist  which  his  fingers  grasp, 
and  under  the  guidance  of  these  slight  movements  he 
is  led  to  the  particular  place.     Some  persons  express 
their  thought  of  places  more  easily  than  others  and  are 
therefore  better  fitted  for  the  game,  and  we  find  still 
greater  differences  in  the  sensitiveness  of  different  per- 
sons.    Not  every  one  can  play  the  game  as  well  as  a 
[158] 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

trained  stage  performer,  who  may  have  an  extreme 
refinement  of  touch  and  may  notice  even  the  least 
movements  in  the  wrist  which  others  would  not  feel  at 
all.  Such  an  explanation  is  not  an  arbitrary  theory. 
We  can  easily  show  with  delicate  instruments  in  the 
psychological  laboratory  that  every  one  in  thinking  of  a 
special  direction  soon  begins  to  move  his  hand  toward 
it  without  knowing  anything  of  these  slight  movements. 
The  instruments  allow  the  reading  of  such  impulses 
where  the  mere  feeling  of  the  hand  would  hardly  show 
any  signs.  A  very  neat  form  of  the  same  type  is  often 
seen  on  the  stage  when  the  performer  is  to  read  a 
series  of  numbers  in  the  mind  of  some  one  who  thinks 
intensely  of  the  figures.  Some  one  in  the  audience 
thinks  of  the  number  fifty-seven.  The  performer  asks 
him  to  think  of  the  first  figure,  then  he  grasps  his  hand 
and  counts  slowly  from  zero  to  nine.  After  that  he 
asks  him  to  think  of  the  second  figure,  and  counts  once 
more.  Immediately  after  he  will  announce  rightly  the 
two  digits.  Again  there  is  no  mystery  in  it.  He 
knows  that  the  man  who  thinks  of  the  figure  five  will 
make  a  slight  involuntary  movement  when  the  five 
is  reached  in  counting,  and  the  same  movement  will 
occur  at  the  seven  in  the  second  counting.  If  he  is 
very  well  trained,  he  will  not  need  the  touching  of  the 

[159] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
hand;  he  will  perform  the  same  experiment  with  figures 
without  any  actual  contact  whatever.  It  will  be  suffi- 
cient to  see  the  man  who  is  thinking  of  a  figure  while 
he  himself  is  counting.  As  soon  as  the  dangerous  digit 
is  reached,  the  man  will  give  some  unintentional  sign. 
Perhaps  his  breathing  will  become  a  degree  deeper,  or 
stop  for  a  moment,  his  eyelids  may  make  a  reflex  move- 
ment, his  fingers  may  contract  a  bit.  This  remains 
entirely  unnoticed  by  any  one  in  the  audience,  .but  the 
professional  mind-reader  has  heightened  his  sensibility 
so  much  that  none  of  these  involuntary  signs  escapes 
him.  Yet  from  the  standpoint  of  science  his  seeing 
these  subtle  signs  is  on  principle  no  different  from  our 
ordinary  seeing  when  a  man  points  his  finger  in  some 
direction. 

But  the  experience  of  the  scientist  goes  still  farther. 
In  the  cases  of  this  parlour  trick  and  the  stage  perform- 
ance the  one  who  claims  to  read  the  mind  of  the  other 
is  more  or  less  clearly  aware  of  those  unintended  signs. 
He  feels  those  slight  movement  impulses,  which  he  fol- 
lows. But  we  know  from  experiences  of  very  different 
kind  that  such  signs  may  make  an  impression  on  the 
senses  and  influence  the  man,  and  yet  may  not  really 
come  to  consciousness.  Even  those  who  play  the  game 
of  mind-reading  in  the  parlour  and  who  are  led  by  the 
[160] 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

arm  movements  to  find  the  hidden  coin  will  often  say 
with  perfect  sincerity  that  they  do  not  feel  any  move- 
ments in  the  wrist  which  they  touch.  This  is  indeed 
quite  possible.  Those  slight  shocks  which  come  to 
their  finger  tips  reach  their  brains  and  control  their 
movements  without  producing  a  conscious  impression. 
They  are  led  in  the  right  direction  without  knowing 
what  is  leading  them.  The  physician  finds  the  most 
extreme  cases  of  such  happenings  with  some  types  of 
his  hysteric  patients.  They  may  not  hear  what  is  said 
to  them  or  see  what  is  shown  to  them,  and  yet  it  makes 
an  impression  on  them  and  works  on  their  minds,  and 
they  may  be  able  later  to  bring  it  to  their  memory  and 
it  may  guide  their  actions,  but  on  account  of  their  dis- 
ease those  impressions  do  not  really  reach  their  con- 
scious minds. 

We  find  the  same  lack  of  seeing  or  hearing  or  feeling 
in  many  cases  of  hypnotism.  But  it  is  not  necessary 
to  go  to  such  extreme  happenings.  All  of  us  can  re- 
member experiences  when  impressions  reached  our 
eyes  or  ears  and  yet  were  not  noticed  at  the  time,  al- 
though they  guided  our  actions.  We  may  have  been 
on  the  street  in  deep  thought  or  in  an  interesting  con- 
versation so  that  we  were  not  giving  any  attention 
whatever  to  the  way,  and  yet  every  step  was  taken 

[161] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
correctly  under  the  guidance  of  our  eyes.  We  saw  the 
street,  although  we  were  not  conscious  of  seeing  it. 
We  do  not  hear  a  clock  ticking  in  our  room  when  we 
are  working,  and  yet  if  the  clock  suddenly  stops  we 
notice  it.  This  indicates  that  the  ticking  of  the  clock 
reached  us  somehow  and  had  an  effect  on  us  in  spite  of 
our  not  being  conscious  of  it.  The  scientists  are  still 
debating  whether  it  is  best  to  say  that  these  not  con- 
scious processes  are  going  on  in  our  subconscious  mind 
or  whether  they  are  simply  brain  processes.  For  all 
practical  purposes,  this  makes  no  difference.  We  may 
say  that  our  brain  gets  an  impression  through  our  eyes 
when  we  see  the  street,  or  through  our  ears  when  we 
hear  the  clock,  or  we  may  say  that  our  subconscious 
mind  receives  these  messages  of  eye  and  ear.  In 
neither  case  does  the  scientist  find  anything  mysterious 
or  supernatural. 

I  am  convinced  that  all  the  experiences  with  Beulah 
Miller  may  ultimately  be  understood  through  those 
two  principles.  She  has  unusual  gifts  and  her  perform- 
ances are  extremely  interesting,  but  I  think  everything 
can  be  explained  through  her  subconscious  noticing 
of  unintended  signs.  Where  no  signs  are  given  which 
reach  her  senses,  she  cannot  read  any  one's  mind.  But 
the  signs  which  she  receives  are  not  noticed  by  her  con- 
[162] 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

sciously.  She  is  not  really  aware  of  them;  they  go  to 
her  brain  or  to  her  subconscious  mind  and  work  from 
there  on  her  conscious  mind. 

What  speaks  in  favour  of  such  a  skeptical  view?  I 
mention  at  first  one  fact  which  was  absolutely  proved 
by  my  experiments  —  namely,  that  Beulah  Miller's 
successes  turn  into  complete  failures  as  soon  as  neither 
the  mother  nor  the  sister  is  present  in  the  room.  All 
the  experiments  which  I  have  conducted  in  which  I 
alone,  or  I  together  with  the  minister  and  the  judge, 
thought  of  words  or  cards  or  letters  or  numbers  did  not 
yield  better  results  than  any  one  would  get  by  mere 
guessing.  In  one  series,  for  instance,  in  which  we  all 
three  made  the  greatest  effort  to  concentrate  our  minds 
on  written  figures,  she  knew  the  first  number  correctly 
only  in  two  out  of  fourteen  cases.  In  another  series 
of  twelve  letters  she  did  not  know  a  single  one  at  the 
first  trial.  Sometimes  when  she  showed  splendid  re- 
sults with  her  sister  Gladys  present,  everything  stopped 
the  very  moment  the  sister  left  the  room.  Sometimes 
Beulah  knew  the  first  half  of  a  word  while  Gladys  stood 
still  in  the  same  room,  and  could  not  get  the  second  half 
of  the  word  when  Gladys  in  the  meantime  had  stepped 
from  the  little  parlour  to  the  kitchen.  Beulah  was 
helpless  even  when  a  wooden  door  was  between  her 

[163] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
and  the  member  of  her  family.  She  herself  did  not 
know  that  it  made  such  a  difference,  but  the  records 
leave  no  doubt.  I  may  at  once  add  here  another  argu- 
ment. The  good  results  stop  entirely  when  Beulah 
is  blindfolded.  Even  when  both  her  mother  and  sister 
were  sitting  quite  near  her,  her  mind-reading  became 
pure  guesswork  when  her  eyes  were  covered  with  a 
scarf.  Again,  she  liked  to  make  the  experiment  under 
this  condition  and  was  not  aware  that  her  knowledge 
failed  her  when  she  did  not  see  her  mother  or  sister. 
Her  delight  in  being  blindfolded  spoke  very  clearly 
for  her  naive  sincerity,  but  her  failure  indicated  no 
less  clearly  that  she  must  be  dependent  upon  uninten- 
tional signs  for  her  success. 

Let  me  say  at  once  that  some  of  the  observers  would 
probably  object  to  my  statement  that  the  presence  of 
the  family  was  needed  and  that  she  had  to  be  in  such 
direct  connection  with  them.  The  newspapers  told 
wonderful  stories  of  her  success  with  strangers,  and 
even  the  judge  and  the  minister  felt  certain  that  they 
had  seen  splendid  results  under  most  difficult  condi- 
tions. Yet  I  have  to  stick  to  what  I  observed  myself. 
It  may  be  objected  —  and  it  is  well  known  that  this  is 
the  pet  objection  of  the  spiritualists  against  the  criti- 
cism of  scholars  —  that  the  results  come  well  only  when 

[164] 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

the  child  is  in  full  sympathy  with  those  present  and 
that  I  may  have  disturbed  her.  But  this  was  not  the 
case.  I  evidently  did  not  disturb  her,  inasmuch  as  we 
saw  that  the  experiments  which  I  made  with  her  when 
the  sister  or  the  mother  was  present  were  most  sat- 
isfactory. Moreover,  she  was  evidently  very  much  at 
ease  with  me  when  we  had  become  more  acquainted, 
and  just  those  entirely  negative  results  were  mostly 
received  on  a  morning  when  I  had  f ulfilled  the  dearest 
wishes  of  the  two  children,  a  watch  for  the  one  and  a 
ring  for  the  other,  besides  all  the  candy  with  which  my 
pockets  were  regularly  stuffed.  She  was  in  the  happi- 
est frame  of  mind  and  most  willing  to  do  her  best. 
But  if  I  rely  exclusively  on  my  own  observation,  it  is 
not  only  because  I  suppose  that  the  experiments 
yielded  just  as  good  results  as  those  of  other  observers. 
It  is  rather  because  I  know  how  difficult  it  is  to  give 
reliable  accounts  from  mere  memory  and  to  make  ex- 
periments without  long  training  in  experimental  meth- 
ods. All  those  publicly  reported  experiments  had  been 
made  without  any  actual  exact  records,  and,  moreover, 
by  persons  who  overlooked  the  most  evident  sources 
of  error.  As  a  matter  of  course,  I  took  notes  of  every- 
thing which  happened,  and  treated  the  case  with  the 
same  carefulness  with  which  I  am  accustomed  to  carry 

[165] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
on  the  experiments  in  the  Harvard  Psychological  Lab- 
oratory. 

To  give  some  illustrations  of  sources  of  error,  I  may 
mention  that  the  earlier  observers  were  convinced  that 
Beulah  could  not  see  slight  movements  of  the  persons 
in  the  room  when  she  was  looking  fixedly  at  the  ceiling, 
or  that  she  could  not  notice  the  movements  of  the  sister 
or  the  mother  when  she  was  staring  straight  into  the 
eyes  of  the  experimenter.  Any  psychologist,  on  the 
contrary,  would  say  that  that  would  be  a  most  favour- 
able condition  for  watching  small  signs.  He  knows 
that  while  we  fixate  a  point  with  the  centre  of  our  eye 
we  are  most  sensitive  to  slight  movement  impressions 
on  the  side  parts  of  our  eye,  and  that  this  sensitiveness 
is  often  abnormally  heightened.  Just  when  the  child 
is  looking  steadily  into  our  face  or  to  the  ceiling,  the 
outside  parts  of  her  sensitive  retina  may  bring  to  her  the 
visible  unintentional  signs  from  her  sister  or  mother. 
The  untrained  observer  is  also  usually  unaware  how 
easily  he  helps  by  suggestive  movements  or  utterances 
to  the  other  observers.  When  Beulah  gave  a  six  in- 
stead of  a  nine,  one  of  our  friends  whispered  that  she 
may  have  seen  it  upside  down  in  her  mind,  or  when  she 
gave  a  zero  instead  of  a  six  that  it  looked  similar. 
In  short,  they  keep  helping  without  knowing  it.  Very 
[166] 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

characteristic  is  the  habit  of  unintentionally  using 
phrases  which  begin  with  the  letters  of  which  they  are 
thinking.  The  letter  in  their  minds  forces  them  to 
speak  words  which  begin  with  it.  If  they  start  at 
a  C,  we  hear  "Come,  Beulah,"  if  at  a  T,  "Try,  Beulah," 
if  at  an  S,  "See,  Beulah."  It  is  very  hard  to  protect 
ourselves  against  such  unintended  and  unnoticed  helps. 
It  is  still  more  difficult  to  keep  the  failures  in  mind. 
The  eager  expectancy  of  hearing  the  right  letter  or 
number  from  the  lips  of  the  child  gives  such  a  strong 
emphasis  to  the  right  results  that  the  wrong  ones  slip 
from  the  mind  of  the  hearer.  The  right  figure  may 
be  only  the  third  or  the  fourth  guess  of  the  child,  but 
if  then  the  whole  admiring  chorus  around  say  emphat- 
ically at  this  fourth  trial  that  this  is  quite  right,  those 
three  wrong  efforts  which  preceded  fade  away  from  the 
memory.  I  may  acknowledge  for  myself  that  I  was 
mostly  inclined  to  believe  that  the  number  of  the  cor- 
rect answers  had  been  greater  than  they  actually  were 
according  to  my  exact  records.  For  all  these  reasons 
I  had  the  very  best  right  to  disregard  the  reports  of 
all  those  who  relied  on  their  amateur  art  of  experiment- 
ing and  on  their  mere  memory  account. 

What  kind  of  signs  could  be  in  question?     It  may 
seem  to  outsiders  that  the  most  wonderful  system  of 

[167] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
signs  would  be  needed  for  every  content  of  one  mind  to 
be  communicated  to  another.  But  here  again  we  must 
first  reduce  the  exaggerated  claims  to  the  simpler  reality. 
When  Beulah  makes  card  experiments,  the  whole  words 
jack,  queen,  king,  spade,  club,  heart,  diamond,  come  to 
her  mind,  but  when  she  makes  word  experiments,  never 
under  any  circumstances  does  a  real  word  come  to  her 
consciousness,  but  only  single  letters.  Why  is  this? 
If  king  and  queen  can  be  transmitted  from  mind  to 
mind,  why  not  dog  and  cat?  Yet  when  the  mother 
thinks  of  dog,  it  is  always  only  first  D,  and  after  a  while 
0,  and  finally  G  which  creeps  into  her  mind.  This 
difference  seems  to  me  most  characteristic,  because  it 
indicates  very  clearly  that  the  whole  performance  is 
possible  only  when  the  communicated  content  belongs 
to  a  small  list  which  can  be  easily  counted.  There  are 
only  three  face  cards,  only  four  suites,  only  ten  numbers, 
and  only  twenty -six  letters,  but  there  are  ten  thousand 
words  and  more.  It  is  easy  to  connect  every  one  of 
the  ten  numbers  or  every  one  of  the  twenty-six  letters 
with  a  particular  sign,  but  it  would  be  impossible  to 
have  a  sign  for  every  one  of  the  ten  thousand  words. 
Yet  if  we  had  to  do  with  real  mind-reading,  it  ought  to 
make  no  difference  whether  we  transmit  the  letter  D 
or  the  word  dog.  This  fact  that  she  can  recognize 
[168] 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

words  only  by  slow  spelling,  while  the  faces  and  the 
suites  of  the  cards  and  the  names  of  the  numbers  come 
as  full  words,  seems  to  me  to  point  most  clearly  to  the 
whole  key  of  the  situation.  Anything  which  cannot  be 
brought  into  such  a  simple  number  series,  for  instance, 
a  colour  impression,  can  never  be  transmitted.  If  the 
mother  looks  at  the  ace  of  diamonds,  Beulah  says  that 
she  sees  the  red  of  the  diamond  before  her  in  her  mind, 
but  if  the  mother  looks  at  the  picture  of  a  blue  lake, 
this  blue  impression  can  never  arise  in  Beulah's  mind, 
but  only  the  letters  B-L-U-E. 

Moreover,  I  observed  that  for  Beulah  the  letters  of 
the  alphabet  were  indeed  connected  with  numbers,  as 
in  seeking  a  letter  she  has  a  habit  of  going  through  the 
alphabet  and  at  the  same  time  moving  one  finger  after 
another.  Thus  she  feels  each  letter  as  having  a  definite 
place  in  her  series  of  finger  movements,  and  the  finger 
movements  themselves  are  often  counted  by  her,  so 
that  each  letter  is  finally  connected  with  a  special 
number.  This,  indeed,  reduces  the  situation  to  rather 
a  simple  scheme.  She  succeeds  only  if  her  mother 
or  sister  is  present  and  if  her  eyes  are  open,  and 
she  succeeds  only  with  material  which  can  be  easily 
counted.  A  very  short  system  of  simple  signs  would 
thus  be  entirely  sufficient  to  communicate  everything 
[169] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
which  her  mind-reading  brings  to  her.  As  to  the  par- 
ticular signs,  I  do  not  yet  feel  sure.  It  would  probably 
take  months  of  careful  examination  before  I  should  find 
them  out,  just  as  in  Germany  it  has  taken  months  for 
scholars  to  discover  the  unintentional  signs  which  the 
owner  of  a  trick  horse  made,  from  which  the  horse  was 
apparently  able  to  calculate.  I  have  no  time  to  carry 
on  such  an  investigation  in  this  case,  the  more  as  I  do 
not  see  that  any  new  insight  could  be  gained  by  it. 

Once  I  noticed  distinctly  how  in  the  card  experi- 
ments the  mother  without  her  own  knowledge  made 
seven  movements  with  her  foot  when  she  thought  of 
the  figure  seven.  That  gave  me  the  idea  that  the  signs 
might  be  given  by  very  slight  knocking  on  the  floor 
which  Beulah's  oversensitive  skin  might  notice.  What 
speaks  against  such  a  view  is  that  the  results  stop  when 
she  is  blindfolded.  Yet  in  this  connection  I  may  men- 
tion another  aspect.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  cov- 
ering of  her  eyes  may  destroy  her  power,  and  that 
nevertheless  she  may  receive  her  signs  chiefly  not 
through  the  eyes,  but  through  touch  and  ear.  It  may 
be  that  she  needs  her  eyes  open  because  the  seeing  of 
the  members  of  the  family  may  heighten  by  a  kind  of 
autosuggestion  her  sensitiveness  for  the  perception 
of  the  slight  signs.  I  have  no  doubt  that  this  kind  of 
[1701 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

autosuggestion  plays  a  large  role  in  her  mind.  She 
can  read  a  card  much  better  when  she  is  allowed  to 
touch  with  her  fingers  the  rear  of  the  card.  She  herself 
believes  that  she  receives  the  knowledge  through  her 
finger  tips.  In  reality  it  is,  of  course,  a  stimulus  by 
which  she  becomes  more  suggestible  and  by  which  ac- 
cordingly her  sensitiveness  to  the  slight  signs  which  her 
mother  and  sister  give  her  becomes  increased.  We 
must,  however,  never  forget  that  these  signs,  whatever 
they  may  be,  are  not  only  unintentional  on  the  part 
of  her  family,  but  also  not  consciously  perceived  by 
Beulah.  If  she  stares  at  the  ceiling,  and  her  mother, 
without  knowing  it,  makes  seven  slight  foot  movements, 
Beulah  gets  through  the  side  parts  of  her  eye  a  nerve 
impression,  but  she  does  not  think  of  the  foot.  This 
nerve  impression,  as  we  saw,  works  on  the  subcon- 
scious mind,  or  on  the  brain,  and  the  idea  of  seven  then 
arises  in  her  conscious  mind  like  a  picture  which  she 
can  see. 

Such  a  system  of  signs,  completely  unknown  to  those 
who  give  them  and  to  her  who  receives  them,  cannot 
have  been  built  up  in  a  short  while.  But  we  heard 
how  it  originated.  At  first  Beulah  recognized  the 
queen  in  the  hands  of  her  sister  and  mother,  when  they 
were  playing  "Old  Maid."  There  are  many  who  have 

[171] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
so  much  power  to  recognize  the  small  signs.  But 
when  they  began  to  make  experiments  with  cards, 
probably  definite  family  habits  developed;  there  was 
much  occasion  to  treat  each  card  individually,  to  link 
some  involuntary  movement  with  the  face  cards  and 
some  with  each  suite,  and  slowly  to  carry  this  system 
over  to  letters.  They  all  agree  that  Beulah  recognizes 
some  frequent  letters  much  more  easily  than  the  rare 
letters.  What  the  observers  have  now  found  was  the 
result  of  two  years'  training  with  mother  and  sister. 
Yet  all  this  became  possible  only  because  Beulah  evi- 
dently has  this  unusual,  supernormal  sensitiveness  to- 
gether with  this  abnormal  power  to  receive  the  signs 
without  their  coming  at  once  to  consciousness.  Her 
mental  makeup  in  this  respect  constantly  reminds  the 
psychologist  of  the  traits  of  a  hysteric  woman. 

We  have  to  add  only  one  important  point.  Some 
startling  results  have  surely  been  gained  by  another 
method.  The  same  sensitiveness  which  makes  Beulah 
able  to  receive  signs  which  others  do  not  notice,  evi- 
dently makes  her  able  to  catch  words  spoken  in  a  low 
voice  within  a  certain  distance,  while  she  is  not  con- 
sciously giving  her  attention  to  them.  She  picks  up 
bits  of  conversation  which  she  overhears  and  which  set- 
tle in  her  subconscious  mind,  until  they  later  come  to 
[172] 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

her  consciousness  in  a  way  for  which  she  cannot  account. 
All  were  startled  when  at  the  end  of  our  first  day  to- 
gether I  took  a  bill  in  my  closed  hand  and  asked  her 
what  I  had  there,  and  she  at  once  replied  a  "ten-dollar 
bill,"  while  they  all  agreed  that  the  child  had  never  seen 
a  ten-dollar  bill  before.  This  result  surprised  the  min- 
ister and  the  judge  greatly,  and  only  later  did  I  remem- 
ber that  I  had  whispered  to  the  judge  in  the  next  room, 
with  the  door  open,  that  I  should  ask  her  to  tell  the 
figures  on  a  ten-dollar  bill.  In  the  same  way  the  great- 
est sensation  must  be  explained,  which  the  experiments 
before  my  arrival  yielded.  The  New  York  lady  who 
came  with  the  minister's  family  and  others  to  the  house 
was  overwhelmed  when  Beulah  spelled  her  name,  which, 
as  the  affidavit  said,  was  not  known  to  any  one  else 
present.  This  affidavit  was  as  a  matter  of  course  given 
according  to  the  best  knowledge  of  all  concerned.  Yet 
when  later  I  came  to  Warren,  one  of  the  participants 
who  told  me  the  incident  strengthened  it  by  adding 
that  he  was  the  more  surprised  when  the  child  spelled 
the  name  correctly  with  a  K  at  the  end,  as  he  had  under- 
stood that  it  was  spelled  with  a  T.  In  other  words, 
some  of  those  present  did  know  the  name,  and  the  lady 
had  evidently  either  been  introduced  or  addressed  by 
some  one,  and  this  had  slipped  from  then-  minds  because 

[173] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY  , 
Beulah  was  not  in  the  room.  But  she  was  probably 
in  the  other  room  and  caught  it  in  her  subconscious 
mind.  At  her  first  debut  before  the  minister,  too,  by  her 
same  abnormal  sensitiveness  she  probably  heard  when 
he  told  the  mother  that  he  had  a  glass  of  honey  in  his 
pocket.  In  short,  the  two  actions  of  her  subconscious 
mind,  or  of  her  brain,  always  go  together,  her  noticing 
of  family  signs  from  her  mother  and  sister  and  her 
catching  of  spoken  words  from  strangers,  both  under 
conditions  under  which  ordinary  persons  would  neither 
see  nor  hear  them.  We  have  therefore  nothing  myste- 
rious, nothing  supernatural  before  us,  but  an  extremely 
interesting  case  of  an  abnormal  mental  development, 
and  this  unusual  power  working  in  a  mind  which  is 
entirely  naive  and  sincere. 

How  long  will  this  naivete  and  sincerity  last?  This 
is  no  psychological,  but  a  social  problem.  Since  the 
newspapers  have  taken  hold  of  the  case,  every  mail 
brings  heaps  of  letters  from  all  corners  of  the  country. 
Some  of  them  bring  invitations  to  give  performances, 
but  they  are  not  the  most  dangerous  ones.  Most  of 
the  letters  urge  the  child  to  use  her  mysterious,  super- 
natural powers  for  trivial  or  pathetic  ends  in  the  inter- 
est of  the  writers.  Sometimes  she  is  to  locate  a  lost 
trunk,  or  a  mislaid  pocketbook;  sometimes  she  is  to 
[174] 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

prophesy  whether  a  voyage  will  go  smoothly  or  whether 
a  business  venture  will  succeed;  sometimes  she  is  to 
read  in  her  mind  where  a  runaway  child  may  be  found; 
and  almost  always  money  promises  are  connected  with 
such  requests.  The  mother,  who  has  not  much  educa- 
tion but  who  is  a  splendid,  right-minded  country  woman 
with  the  very  best  intentions  for  the  true  good  of  her 
children,  has  ignored  all  this  silly  invasion.  She  showed 
me  a  whole  teacupful  of  two-cent  stamps  for  replies 
which  she  had  collected  from  Beulah's  correspondence. 
But  I  ask  again,  how  long  will  it  last?  If  Beulah  closes 
her  eyes  and  some  chance  letters  come  to  her  mind, 
and  she  forms  a  word  from  them  and  sends  it  as  a 
reply  to  the  anxious  mother  who  is  seeking  her  child, 
she  will  soon  discover  that  it  is  easy  to  gather  money 
in  a  world  which  wants  to  be  deceived.  She  is  followed 
by  the  most  tempting  invitations  to  live  in  metropolitan 
houses  where  sensational  experiments  can  be  performed 
with  her.  The  naive  mother  is  still  impressed  when  a 
New  York  woman  applies  the  well-known  tricks  and 
assures  her  that  the  child  reminds  her  so  much  of  her 
own  little  dead  niece  that  she  ought  to  come  to  her 
New  York  house.  It  is  a  pity  how  the  community 
forces  sensationalism,  commercialism,  and  finally  hum- 
bug and  fraud  on  a  naive  little  country  girl  who  ought 

[175] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
to  be  left  alone  with  her  pet  lamb  in  her  mother's 
kitchen.  Her  gift  is  extremely  interesting  to  the 
psychologist,  and  if  it  is  not  misused  by  those  who  try 
to  pump  spiritualistic  superstitions  into  her  little  mind 
or  to  force  automatic  writing  on  her  it  will  be  harmless 
and  no  cause  for  hysteric  developments.  But  surely 
her  art  is  entirely  useless  for  any  practical  purpose. 
She  cannot  know  anything  which  others  do  not  know 
beforehand.  Clairvoyant  powers  or  prophetic  gifts  are 
not  hers,  and  above  all  her  mind-reading  is  a  natural 
process.  The  edifice  of  science  will  not  be  shaken  by 
the  powers  of  my  little  Rhode  Island  friend. 

Yet  the  most  important  part  is  not  the  fate  of  the 
individual  child,  but  the  behaviour  of  this  nation-wide 
public  which  chases  her  into  the  swamps  of  fraud.  No 
one  can  decide  and  settle  whether  the  party  of  super- 
stition forms  the  majority  or  the  minority.  If  all  the 
silent  voters  were  sincere,  they  probably  would  carry 
the  vote  for  telepathy.  But  in  any  case,  such  a  party 
exists,  and  it  does  not  care  in  the  least  that  scientific 
investigations  clear  up  a  case  which  threatens  to  bring 
our  world  of  thought  into  chaotic  disorder.  A  world 
of  mental  trickery  and  mystery,  a  world  which  by  its 
very  principle  could  never  be  understood,  is  to  them 
instinctively  more  welcome  than  a  world  of  scientific 
[176] 


THOUGHT  TRANSFERENCE 

order.  There  cannot  be  a  more  fundamental  contrast 
between  men  who  are  to  form  a  social  unit  than  this 
radical  difference  of  attitude  toward  the  world  of  ex- 
perience. Compared  with  this  deepest  split  in  the 
community,  all  its  other  social  questions  seem  tem- 
porary and  superficial. 


[177] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  JURYMAN 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  JURYMAN 

EVERY  lawyer  knows  some  good  stories  about  some 
wild  juries  he  has  known,  which  made  him  shiver  and 
doubt  whether  a  dozen  laymen  ever  can  see  a  legal 
point.  But  every  newspaper  reader,  too,  remembers  an 
abundance  of  cases  in  which  the  decision  of  the  jury 
startled  him  by  its  absurdity.  Who  does  not  recall 
sensational  acquittals  in  which  sympathy  for  the  defend- 
ant or  prejudice  against  the  plaintiff  carried  away  the 
feelings  of  the  twelve  good  men  and  true?  For  them 
are  the  unwritten  laws,  for  them  the  mingling  of  justice 
with  race  hatreds  or  with  gallantry.  And  even  in  the 
heart  of  New  York  a  judge  recently  said  to  a  chauffeur 
who  had  killed  a  child  and  had  been  acquitted:  "Now 
go  and  get  drunk  again;  then  this  jury  will  allow  you  to 
run  over  as  many  children  as  you  like." 

Yet  whatever  the  temperament  of  the  jury  and  its 
legal  insight,  we  may  sharply  separate  its  ideas  of  de- 
served punishment  from  that  far  more  important  aspect 

[181] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
of  its  function,  the  weighing  of  evidence.  The  juries 
may  be  whimsical  in  their  decisions,  they  may  be  leni- 
ent in  their  acquittals  or  over-rigid  in  their  verdicts  of 
guilty,  but  that  is  quite  in  keeping  with  the  democratic 
spirit  of  the  institution.  The  Teutonic  nations  did  not 
want  the  abstract  law  of  the  scholarly  judges;  they 
want  the  pulse-beat  of  life  throbbing  in  the  court  deci- 
sions, and  what  may  be  a  wilful  ignoring  of  the  law  of 
the  jurists  may  be  a  heartfelt  expression  of  the  popular 
sentiment.  Better  to  have  some  statutes  riddled  by 
the  illogical  verdicts  than  legal  decisions  severed  from 
the  sense  of  justice  which  is  living  in  the  soul  of  the 
nation.  But  while  a  rush  into  prejudice  or  a  hasty 
overriding  of  law  may  draw  attention  to  some  excep- 
tional verdicts,  in  the  overwhelming  mass  of  jury  de- 
cisions nothing  is  aimed  at  but  a  real  clearing  up  of  the 
facts.  The  evidence  is  submitted,  and  while  the  law- 
yers may  have  wrangled  as  to  what  is  evidence  and  what 
is  not,  and  while  they  may  have  tried,  by  then*  pres- 
entation of  the  witnesses  on  their  own  side  and  by  their 
cross-examinations,  to  throw  light  on  some  parts  of 
the  evidence  and  shadow  on  some  others,  the  jurymen 
are  simply  to  seek  the  truth  when  all  the  evidence  has 
been  submitted.  And  mostly  they  do  not  forget  that 
they  will  live  up  to  their  duty  best  the  more  they  sup- 

[182] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  JURYMAN 

press  in  their  own  hearts  the  question  whether  they  like 
or  dislike  the  truth  that  comes  to  light.  Whoever 
weighs  the  social  significance  of  the  jury  system  ought 
not  to  be  guided  by  the  few  stray  cases  in  which  the 
emotional  response  obscures  the  truth,  but  all  praise 
and  blame  and  every  scrutiny  of  the  institution  ought 
to  be  confined  essentially  to  the  ability  of  the  jurymen 
to  live  up  to  their  chief  responsibility,  the  sober  finding 
of  the  true  facts. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  much  criticism  has  been 
directed  against  the  whole  jury  system  in  America  as 
well  as  in  Europe  by  legal  scholars  as  well  as  by  lay- 
men on  account  of  the  prevailing  doubt  whether  the 
traditional  form  is  really  furthering  the  clearing  up  of 
the  hidden  truth.  Where  the  evidence  is  so  perfectly 
clear  that  every  one  by  himself  feels  from  the  start 
exactly  like  all  the  others,  the  cooperation  of  the  twelve 
men  cannot  do  any  harm,  but  it  cannot  do  any  par- 
ticular good  either.  Such  cases  do  not  demand  the 
special  interest  of  the  social  reformer.  His  doubts  and 
fears  come  up  only  when  difference  of  opinion  exists, 
and  the  discussion  and  the  repeated  votes  overcome  the 
divergence  of  opinion.  The  skeptics  claim  that  the 
system  as  such  may  easily  be  instrumental  for  suppress- 
ing the  truth  and  bringing  the  erroneous  opinion  to 

[183] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
victory.  In  earlier  times  a  frequent  objection  was  that 
lack  of  higher  education  made  men  unfit  to  weigh  cor- 
rectly the  facts  in  a  complicated  situation.  But  this 
kind  of  arguing  has  been  given  up  for  a  long  while. 
The  famous  French  lawyer  who,  whenever  he  had  a 
weak  case,  made  use  of  his  right  to  challenge  jurymen 
by  systematically  excluding  all  persons  of  higher  educa- 
tion, certainly  blundered  in  this  respect,  according  to 
the  views  of  to-day.  Those  best  informed  within  and 
without  the  legal  science  agree  that  the  verdicts  of 
straightforward  people  with  public-school  education 
are  in  the  long  run  neither  better  nor  worse  than  those 
of  men  with  college  schooling  or  professional  training. 
A  jury  of  artisans  and  farmers  understands  and  looks 
into  a  mass  of  neutral  material  as  well  as  a  jury  of 
bankers  and  doctors,  or  at  least  its  final  verdict  has 
an  equal  chance  to  hit  the  truth. 

But  the  critics  say  that  it  is  not  the  lack  of  general  or 
logical  training  of  the  single  individual  which  obstructs 
the  path  of  justice.  The  trouble  lies  rather  in  the 
mutual  influence  of  the  twelve  men.  The  more  per- 
sons work  together,  the  less,  they  say,  every  single  man 
can  reach  his  highest  level.  They  become  a  mass  with 
mass  consciousness,  a  kind  of  crowd  in  which  each  one 
becomes  oversuggestible.  Each  one  thinks  less  reli- 
,[184] 


THE  MIND  OP  THE  JURYMAN 

ably,  less  intelligently,  and  less  impartially  than  he 
would  by  himself  alone.  We  know  how  men  in  a  crowd 
do  indeed  lose  some  of  the  best  features  of  their  in- 
dividuality. A  crowd  may  be  thrown  into  a  panic,  may 
rush  into  any  foolish,  violent  action,  may  lynch  and 
plunder,  or  a  crowd  may  be  stirred  to  a  pitch  of  en- 
thusiasm, may  be  roused  to  heroic  deeds  or  to  wonderful 
generosity,  but  whether  the  outcome  be  wretched  or 
splendid,  in  any  case  it  is  the  product  of  persons  who 
have  been  entirely  changed.  In  the  midst  of  the  panic 
or  in  the  midst  of  the  heroic  enthusiasm  no  one  has 
kept  his  own  characteristic  mental  features.  The  in- 
dividual no  longer  judges  for  himself;  he  is  carried  away, 
his  own  heart  reverberates  with  the  feelings  of  the  whole 
crowd.  The  mass  consciousness  is  not  an  adding  up,  a 
mere  summation,  of  the  individual  minds,  but  the  crea- 
tion of  something  entirely  new.  Such  a  crowd  may  be 
pushed  into  any  paths,  chance  leaders  may  use  or  mis- 
use its  increased  suggestibility  for  any  ends.  No  one 
can  foresee  whether  this  heaping  up  of  men  will  bring 
good  or  bad  results.  Certainly  the  individual  level  of 
the  crowd  will  always  be  below  the  level  of  its  best 
members.  And  is  not  a  jury  necessarily  such  a  group 
with  a  mass  consciousness  of  its  own?  Every  individ- 
ual is  melted  into  the  total,  has  lost  his  independent 

[185] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
power  of  judging,  and  becomes  influenced  through  his 
heightened   suggestibility   and   sueial  feeling   by   any 
chance  pressure  which  may  push  toward  error  as  often 
as  toward  truth. 

But  if  such  arguments  are  brought  into  play,  it  is 
evident  that  it  is  no  longer  a  legal  question,  but  a  psy- 
chological one.  The  psychologist  alone  deals  scien- 
tifically with  the  problem  of  mutual  mental  influence 
and  with  the  reenforcing  or  awakening  of  mental  ener- 
gies by  social  cooperation.  He  should  accordingly 
investigate  the  question  with  his  own  methods  and 
deal  with  it  from  the  standpoint  of  the  scientist.  This 
means  he  is  not  simply  to  form  an  opinion  from  general 
vague  impressions  and  to  talk  about  it  as  about  a  ques- 
tion of  politics,  where  any  man  may  have  his  personal 
idea  or  fancy,  but  to  discover  the  facts  by  definite  ex- 
periments. The  modern  student  of  mental  life  is 
accustomed  to  the  methods  of  the  laboratory.  He 
wants  to  see  exact  figures  by  which  the  essential  facts 
come  into  sharp  relief.  But  let  us  understand  clearly 
what  such  an  experiment  means.  When  the  psycholo- 
gist goes  to  work  in  his  laboratory,  his  aim  is  to  study 
those  thoughts  and  emotions  and  feelings  and  deeds 
which  move  our  social  world.  But  his  aim  is  not  simply 
to  imitate  or  to  repeat  the  social  scenes  of  the  com- 

[186] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  JURYMAN 

munity.  He  must  simplify  them  and  bring  them  down 
to  the  most  elementary  situations,  in  which  only  the 
characteristic  mental  actions  are  left.  Is  this  not  the 
way  in  which  the  experimenters  proceed  in  every  field? 
The  physicist  or  the  chemist  does  not  study  the  great 
events  as  they  occur  in  nature  on  a  large  scale  and  with 
bewildering  complexity  of  conditions,  but  he  brings 
down  every  special  fact  which  interests  him  to  a  neat, 
miniature  copy  on  his  laboratory  table.  There  he 
mixes  a  few  chemical  solutions  in  his  retorts  and  his 
test-tubes,  or  produces  the  rays  or  sparks  or  currents 
with  his  subtle  laboratory  instruments,  and  he  feels 
sure  that  whatever  he  finds  there  must  hold  true  every- 
where in  the  gigantic  universe.  If  the  waters  move  in  a 
certain  way  in  the  little  tank  on  his  table,  he  knows  that 
they  must  move  according  to  the  same  laws  in  the  midst 
of  the  ocean.  In  this  spirit  the  psychologist  arranges 
his  experiments  too.  He  does  not  carry  them  on  in  the 
turmoil  of  social  life,  but  prepares  artificial  situations 
in  which  the  persons  will  show  the  laws  of  mental  be- 
haviour. An  experiment  on  memory  or  attention  or 
imagination  or  feeling  may  bring  out  in  a  few  minutes 
mental  facts  which  the  ordinary  observer  would  dis- 
cover only  if  he  were  to  watch  the  behaviour  and  life 
attitudes  of  the  man  for  years.  Everything  depends 

[187] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
upon  the  degree  with  which  the  characteristic  mental 
states  are  brought  into  play  under  experimental  con- 
ditions. The  great  advantage  of  the  experimental 
method  is,  here  as  everywhere,  that  everything  can  be 
varied  and  changed  at  will  and  that  the  conditions  and 
the  effects  can  be  exactly  measured. 

If  we  apply  these  principles  to  the  question  of  the 
jury,  the  task  is  clear.  We  want  to  find  out  whether 
the  cooperation,  the  discussion,  and  the  repeated  voting 
of  a  number  of  individuals  are  helping  or  hindering  them 
in  the  effort  to  judge  correctly  upon  a  complex  situa- 
tion. We  must  therefore  artificially  create  a  situation 
which  brings  into  action  the  judgment,  the  discussion, 
and  the  vote,  but  if  we  are  loyal  to  the  idea  of  experi- 
menting we  must  keep  the  experiment  free  from  all 
those  features  of  a  real  jury  deliberation  which  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  mental  action  itself.  Moreover, 
it  is  evident  that  the  situations  to  be  judged  must  allow 
a  definite  knowledge  as  to  the  objective  truth.  The 
experimenter  must  know  which  verdict  of  his  voters 
corresponds  to  the  real  facts.  Secondly,  the  situation 
must  be  difficult  in  order  that  a  real  doubt  may  pre- 
vail. If  all  the  voters  were  on  one  side  from  the  start, 
no  discussion  would  be  needed.  Thirdly,  it  must  be  a 
rather  complex  situation  in  order  that  the  judgment 
[188] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  JURYMAN 

may  be  influenced  by  a  number  of  motives.  Only  in 
this  case  will  it  be  possible  for  the  discussion  to  point 
out  factors  which  the  other  party  may  have  over- 
looked, thus  giving  a  chance  for  changes  of  mind.  All 
these  demands  must  be  fulfilled  if  the  experiment  is 
really  to  picture  the  jury  function.  But  it  would  be 
utterly  superfluous  and  would  make  the  exact  measure- 
ment impossible  if  the  material  on  which  the  judgment 
is  to  be  based  were  of  the  same  kind  of  which  the  evi- 
dence in  the  courtroom  is  composed.  The  trial  by 
jury  in  an  actual  criminal  case  may  involve  many 
picturesque  and  interesting  details,  but  the  mental  act 
of  judging  is  no  different  when  the  most  trivial  objects 
are  chosen. 

I  settled  on  the  following  simple  device:  I  used 
sheets  of  dark  gray  cardboard.  On  each  were  pasted 
white  paper  dots  of  different  form  and  in  an  irregular 
order.  Each  card  had  between  ninety-two  and  a  hun- 
dred and  eight  such  white  dots  of  different  sizes.  The 
task  was  to  compare  the  number  of  spots  on  one  card 
with  the  number  of  spots  on  another.  Perhaps  I  held 
up  a  card  with  a  hundred  and  four  dots  above,  and  be- 
low one  with  ninety-eight.  Then  the  subjects  of  the 
experiment  had  to  decide  whether  the  upper  card  had 
more  dots  or  fewer  dots  or  an  equal  number  compared 

[189] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
with  the  lower  one.  I  made  the  first  set  of  experi- 
ments with  eighteen  Harvard  students.  I  took  more 
than  the  twelve  men  who  form  a  jury  in  order  to  reen- 
force  the  possible  effect,  but  did  not  wish  to  exceed  the 
number  greatly,  so  that  the  character  of  the  discussion 
might  be  similar  to  that  in  a  jury.  A  much  larger  num- 
ber would  have  made  the  discussion  too  formal  or  too 
unruly.  The  eighteen  men  sat  around  a  long  table  and 
were  first  allowed  to  look  for  half  a  minute  at  the  two 
big  cards,  each  forming  his  judgment  independently. 
Then  at  a  signal  every  one  had  to  write  down  whether 
the  number  of  dots  on  the  upper  card  was  larger,  equal, 
or  smaller.  Immediately  after  that  they  had  to  indi- 
cate by  a  show  of  hands  how  many  had  voted  for  each 
of  the  three  possibilities.  After  that  a  discussion  began. 
Indeed,  the  two  cards  offered  plenty  of  points  for  earnest 
and  vivid  discussion.  During  the  exchange  of  opinion 
in  which  those  who  had  voted  larger  tried  to  con- 
vince the  party  of  the  smaller,  and  vice  versa,  they  were 
always  able  to  look  at  the  cards  and  to  refer  to  them, 
pointing  to  the  various  parts.  One  showed  how  the 
distances  on  the  one  card  appeared  larger,  and  another 
pointed  out  how  the  spots  were  clustered  in  a  certain 
region,  a  third  how  the  dots  were  smaller  in  some  parts, 
a  fourth  spoke  about  the  optical  illusions,  a  fifth  about 
[190] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  JURYMAN 

certain  impressions  resulting  from  the  narrowness  of 
the  margin,  and  a  sixth  about  the  effect  of  certain  irreg- 
ularities in  the  distribution.  In  short,  very  different 
aspects  were  considered  and  very  different  factors 
emphasized.  The  discussion  was  sometimes  quite  ex- 
cited, three  or  four  men  speaking  at  the  same  time. 
After  exactly  five  minutes  of  talking  the  vote  was  re- 
peated, again  at  first  being  written  and  then  being 
taken  by  show  of  hands.  A  second  five  minutes'  ex- 
change of  opinion  followed  with  a  new  effort  to  con- 
vince the  dissenters.  After  this  period  the  third  and 
last  vote  was  taken.  This  experiment  was  carried  out 
with  a  variety  of  cards  with  smaller  or  larger  difference 
of  numbers,  but  the  difference  always  enough  to  allow 
an  uncertainty  of  judgment.  Here,  indeed,  we  had  re- 
peated all  the  essential  conditions  of  the  jury  vote  and 
discussion,  and  the  mental  state  was  characteristically 
similar  to  that  of  the  jurymen. 

The  very  full  accounts  which  the  participants  in  the 
experiment  wrote  down  the  following  day  indicated 
clearly  that  we  had  a  true  imitation  of  the  mental  pro- 
cess in  spite  of  the  striking  simplicity  of  our  conditions. 
One  man,  for  instance,  described  his  inner  experience 
as  follows:  "I  think  the  experiment  involves  factors 
quite  comparable  to  those  that  determine  the  verdict  of 

[191] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
a  jury.  The  cards  with  their  spots  are  the  evidence 
pro  and  con  which  each  juryman  has  before  him  to 
interpret.  Each  person's  decision  on  the  number  is  his 
interpretation  of  the  situation.  The  arguments,  too, 
seem  quite  comparable  to  the  arguments  of  the  jury. 
Both  consist  in  pointing  out  factors  of  the  situation 
that  have  been  overlooked  and  in  showing  how  differ- 
ent interpretations  may  be  possible."  Another  man 
writes:  "In  the  experiment  it  seemed  that  one  man 
judged  by  one  criterion  and  another  by  another,  such 
as  distribution,  size  of  spots,  vacant  spaces,  or  counting 
along  one  edge.  Discussion  often  brought  immediate 
attention  to  other  criterions  than  those  he  used  in  his 
first  judgment,  and  these  often  outweighed  the  original. 
Similarly,  different  jurymen  would  base  their  opinion 
on  different  aspects  of  the  case,  and  discussion  would 
tend  to  draw  their  attention  to  other  aspects.  The 
experiment  also  illustrated  the  relative  weight  given  to 
the  opinion  of  different  fellow-jurymen.  I  found  that 
the  statements  of  a  few  of  the  older  men  who  have  had 
more  extensive  psychological  experience  weighed  more 
with  me  than  those  of  the  others.  Suggestion  did  not 
seem  to  be  much  of  a  factor.  A  man  is  rather  on  his 
mettle,  and  ready  to  defend  his  original  impression,  until 
he  finds  that  it  is  hopeless."  Again,  another  writes: 
[192] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  JURYMAN 

"To  me  the  experiment  seemed  fairly  comparable  to  the 
real  situation.  As  in  an  actual  trial,  the  full  truth  was 
not  available,  but  certain  evidence  was  presented  to  all 
for  interpretation.  As  to  the  nature  of  the  discussion 
itself,  I  think  there  was  the  same  mingling  of  suggestion 
and  real  argument  that  is  to  be  found  in  a  jury  dis- 
cussion." Another  says:  "The  discussion  influenced 
me  by  suggesting  other  methods  of  analysis.  For  in- 
stance, comparison  of  the  amount  of  open  space  in  two 
cards,  comparison  of  the  number  of  dots  along  the 
edges,  estimation  in  diagonal  lines,  were  methods  men- 
tioned in  the  discussion  which  I  used  in  forming  my  own 
judgments.  It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  in  my  own 
case  direct  suggestion  had  any  appreciable  effect.  I 
was  conscious  of  a  tendency  toward  contrasuggesti- 
bility.  There  was  a  half  submerged  feeling  that  it 
would  be  good  sport  to  stick  it  out  for  the  losing  side. 
The  lack  of  any  unusual  amount  of  suggestion  and  the 
presence  of  the  influences  of  analysis  and  detailed  com- 
parison seem  to  me  to  show  that  the  tests  were  in  fact 
fairly  comparable  to  situations  in  a  jury  room."  To 
be  sure,  there  were  a  few  who  were  strongly  impressed 
by  the  evident  differences  between  the  rich  material  of 
an  actual  trial  and  the  meagre  content  of  our  tests: 
there  the  actions  of  living  men,  here  the  space  relations 

[193] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
of  little  spots.  But  they  evidently  did  not  sufficiently 
realize  that  the  forming  of  such  number  judgments  was 
not  at  all  a  question  of  mere  perception;  that  on  the 
contrary  many  considerations  were  involved;  most 
men  felt  the  similarity  from  the  start. 

What  were  the  results  of  this  first  group  of  experi- 
ments? Our  interest  must  evidently  be  centred  on  the 
question  of  how  many  judgments  were  correct  at  the 
first  vote  before  any  discussion  and  any  show  of  hands 
were  influencing  the  minds  of  the  men,  and  how  many 
were  correct  at  the  last  vote  after  the  two  periods  of  dis- 
cussion and  after  taking  cognizance  of  the  two  preced- 
ing votes.  If  I  sum  up  all  the  results,  the  outcome  is 
that  52  per  cent,  of  the  first  votes  were  correct  and  78 
per  cent,  of  the  final  votes  were  correct.  The  discus- 
sion of  the  successive  votes  had  therefore  led  to  an  im- 
provement of  26  per  cent,  of  all  votes.  Or,  as  the 
correct  votes  were  at  first  52  per  cent.,  their  number  is 
increased  by  one  half.  May  we  not  say  that  this  demon- 
strates in  exact  figures  that  the  confidence  in  the  jury 
system  is  justified?  And  may  it  not  be  added  that,  in 
view  of  the  widespread  prejudices,  the  result  is  almost 
surprising?  Here  we  had  men  of  high  intelligence  who 
were  completely  able  to  take  account  of  every  possible 
aspect  of  the  situation.  They  had  time  to  do  so,  they 
[194] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  JURYMAN 

had  training  to  do  so,  and  every  foregoing  experiment 
ought  to  have  stimulated  them  to  do  so  in  the  following 
ones.  Yet  their  judgment  was  right  in  only  52  per 
cent,  of  the  cases  until  they  heard  the  opinions  of  the 
others  and  saw  how  they  voted.  The  mere  seeing  of 
the  vote,  however,  cannot  have  been  decisive,  because 
48  per  cent.,  that  is,  practically  half  of  the  votes,  were 
at  first  incorrect.  The  wrong  votes  might  have  had  as 
much  suggestive  influence  on  those  who  voted  rightly 
as  the  right  votes  on  those  on  the  wrong  side.  If, 
nevertheless,  the  change  was  so  strongly  in  the  right 
direction,  the  result  must  clearly  have  come  from  the 
discussion. 

But  I  am  not  at  the  end  of  my  story.  I  made  exactly 
the  same  experiments  also  with  a  class  of  advanced  fe- 
male university  students.  When  I  started,  my  aim  was 
not  to  examine  the  differences  of  men  and  women,  but 
only  to  have  ampler  material,  and  I  confined  my  work 
to  students  in  psychological  classes,  because  I  was  anx- 
ious to  get  the  best  possible  scientific  analysis  of  the 
inner  experiences.  I  had  no  prejudice  in  favour  of  or 
against  women  as  members  of  the  jury,  any  more  than 
my  experiments  were  guided  by  a  desire  to  defend  or  to 
attack  the  jury  system.  I  was  only  anxious  to  clear 
up  the  facts.  The  women  students  had  exactly  the 

[1951 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
same  opportunities  for  seeing  the  cards  and  the  votes 
and  for  exchanging  opinions.  The  discussions,  while 
carried  on  for  the  same  length  of  time,  were  on  the 
whole  less  animated.  There  was  less  desire  to  convince 
and  more  restraint,  but  the  record,  which  was  taken  in 
shorthand,  showed  nearly  the  same  variety  of  argu- 
ments which  the  men  had  brought  forward.  Everything 
agreed  exactly  with  the  experiments  with  the  men,  and 
the  only  difference  was  in  the  results.  The  first  vote  of 
all  experiments  with  the  women  showed  a  slightly 
smaller  number  of  right  judgments.  The  women  had 
45  per  cent,  correct  judgments,  as  against  the  52  per 
cent,  of  the  men.  I  should  not  put  any  emphasis  on 
this  difference.  It  may  be  said  that  the  men  had  more 
training  in  scientific  observations  and  the  task  was 
therefore  slightly  easier  for  them  than  for  most  of  the 
women.  I  should  say  that,  all  taken  together,  men  and 
women  showed  an  equal  ability  in  immediate  judgment, 
as  with  both  groups  about  half  of  the  first  judgments 
were  correct.  The  fact  that  with  the  men  2  per  cent, 
more,  with  the  women  5  per  cent,  less,  than  half  were 
right  would  not  mean  much.  But  the  situation  is  en- 
tirely different  with  the  second  figure.  We  saw  that 
for  the  men  the  discussion  secured  an  increase  from  52 
per  cent,  to  78  per  cent. ;  with  the  women  the  increase 

[196] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  JURYMAN 

is  not  a  single  per  cent.  The  first  votes  were  45  pep 
cent,  right,  and  the  last  votes  were  45  per  cent,  right. 
In  other  words,  they  had  not  learned  anything  from 
discussion. 

It  would  not  be  quite  correct  if  we  were  to  draw  from 
that  the  conclusion  that  the  women  did  not  change  their 
minds  at  all.  If  we  examine  the  number  of  cases  in 
which  in  the  course  of  the  first,  second,  and  third  votes 
in  any  of  the  experiments  some  change  occurred,  we 
find  changes  in  40  per  cent,  of  all  judgments  of  the  men 
and  19  per  cent,  of  all  judgments  of  the  women.  This 
does  not  mean  that  a  change  in  a  particular  case  neces- 
sarily made  the  last  vote  different  from  the  first;  we 
not  seldom  had  a  case  where,  for  instance,  the  first  vote 
was  larger,  the  second  equal,  and  the  third  again  larger. 
And  as  a  matter  of  course,  where  a  change  between  the 
first  and  the  last  occurred,  it  was  not  always  a  change  in 
the  right  direction.  Moreover,  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  the  votes  always  covered  three  possibilities,  and 
not  only  two.  It  was  therefore  possible  for  the  first 
vote  to  be  wrong,  and  then  for  a  change  to  occur 
to  another  wrong  vote.  The  19  per  cent,  changes  in 
the  decisions  of  the  women  contained  accordingly 
as  many  cases  in  which  right  was  turned  into  wrong  as 
in  which  wrong  was  turned  into  right,  while  with  the 

[197] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
men  the  changes  to  the  right  had  an  overweight  of  26 
per  cent.  The  self-analysis  of  the  women  indicated 
clearly  the  reason  for  their  mental  stubbornness.  They 
heard  the  arguments,  but  they  were  so  fully  under  the 
autosuggestion  of  their  first  decision  that  they  fancied 
that  they  had  known  all  that  before,  and  that  they  had 
discounted  the  arguments  of  their  opponents  in  the  first 
vote.  The  cobbler  has  to  stick  to  his  last;  the  psy- 
chologist has  to  be  satisfied  with  analyzing  the  mental 
processes,  but  it  is  not  his  concern  to  mingle  in  politics. 
He  must  leave  it  to  others  to  decide  whether  it  will 
really  be  a  gain  if  the  jury  box  is  filled  with  individuals 
whose  minds  are  unable  to  profit  from  discussion  and 
who  return  to  their  first  idea,  however  much  is  argued 
from  the  other  side.  It  is  evident  that  this  tendency 
of  the  female  mind  must  be  advantageous  for  many 
social  purposes.  The  woman  remains  loyal  to  her  in- 
stinctive opinion.  Hence  we  have  no  right  to  say  that 
the  one  type  of  mind  is  in  general  better  than  the  other. 
We  may  say  only  that  they  are  different,  and  that  this 
difference  makes  the  men  fit  and  the  women  unfit  for 
the  particular  task  which  society  requires  from  the 
jurymen. 

Practical  experience  seems  to  affirm  this  experimental 
result  on  many  sides.     The  public  of  the  east  is  still  too 
[198] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  JURYMAN 

little  aware  of  this  new  and  yet  powerful  influence  in  the 
far  west,  where  the  jury  box  is  accessible  to  women. 
There  is  no  need  to  point  to  extreme  cases.  Any  aver- 
age trial  may  illustrate  the  situation.  I  have  before 
me  the  reports  of  the  latest  murder  trial  at  Seattle,  the 
case  of  Peter  Miller.  The  case  was  unusual  only  in 
that  the  defendant  had  been  studying  criminal  law 
during  his  incarceration  in  jail,  and  addressed  the  jury 
himself  on  his  own  behalf  in  an  argument  that  is  said 
to  have  lasted  nine  hours.  The  jury  was  out  quite  a 
long  time.  Eleven  were  for  acquittal,  one  woman  was 
against  it.  The  next  day  the  papers  brought  out  long 
interviews  with  her  in  which  she  explained  the  situation. 
She  characterized  her  general  sti  nding  in  this  way: 
"I  am  a  dressmaker,  and  go  out  every  day,  six  days  in 
the  week.  I  read  the  classified 'ads  and  glance  at  the 
headlines,  but  I  don't  have  much  time  to  waste  on  any- 
thing else."  But  her  attitude  in  the  jury  room  was 
very  similar.  She  says:  "I  was  sure  of  my  opinion. 
I  didn't  try  to  change  anybody  else's  opinion.  I  just 
kept  my  own.  They  argued  a  good  deal  and  asked  me 
if  the  fact  that  eleven  of  twelve  had  been  convinced  by 
the  same  evidence  of  Peter  Miller's  innocence  didn't 
shake  my  faith  in  my  own  judgment.  Well,  it  didn't. 
We  were  out  twenty-four  hours.  I  borrowed  a  pair  of 

[199] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
knitting  needles  from  one  of  the  jurors,  and  I  sat  there 
and  knitted  most  of  the  time."  The  State  of  Wash- 
ington will  now  have  to  have  a  new  trial,  as  the  jury 
could  not  agree.  There  will  probably  still  be  many 
hung  juries  because  some  dressmaker  borrows  a  pair  of 
knitting  needles  from  one  of  the  jurors,  knits  most  of  the 
time,  and  lets  the  others  argue,  as  she  is  sure  of  her  own 
opinion.  The  naive  epigram  of  this  model  juror,  "I 
didn't  try  to  change  anybody  else's  opinion;  I  just  kept 
my  own,"  illuminates  the  whole  situation.  This  is  no 
contrast  to  the  popular  idea  that  woman  easily  changes 
her  mind.  She  changes  it,  but  others  cannot  change  it. 
In  order  to  make  quite  sure  that  the  discussion  and 
not  the  seeing  of  the  vote  is  responsible  for  the  marked 
improvement  in  the  case  of  men,  I  carried  on  some  fur- 
ther experiments  in  which  the  voting  alone  was  in- 
volved. To  bring  this  mental  process  to  strongest 
expression,  I  went  far  beyond  the  small  circle  which 
was  needed  for  the  informal  exchange  of  opinion,  and 
operated  instead  with  my  large  class  of  psychological 
students  in  Harvard.  I  have  there  four  hundred  and 
sixty  students,  and  accordingly  had  to  use  much  larger 
cards  with  large  dots.  I  showed  to  them  any  two 
cards  twice.  There  was  an  interval  of  twenty  seconds 
between  the  first  and  the  second  exposures,  and  each 
[200] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  JURYMAN 

time  they  looked  at  the  cards  for  three  seconds.  In 
one  half  of  the  experiments  that  interval  was  not  filled 
at  all;  in  the  other  half  a  quick  show  of  hands  was 
arranged  so  that  every  one  could  see  how  many  on  the 
first  impression  judged  the  upper  card  as  having  more 
or  an  equal  number  or  fewer  dots  than  the  lower. 
After  the  second  exposure  every  one  had  to  write  down 
his  final  result.  The  pairs  of  cards  which  were  exposed 
when  the  show  of  hands  was  made  were  the  same  as 
those  which  were  shown  without  any  one  knowing  how 
the  other  men  judged.  We  calculated  the  results  on 
the  basis  of  four  hundred  reports.  They  showed  that 
the  total  number  of  right  judgments  in  the  cases  with- 
out showing  hands  was  60  per  cent,  correct ;  in  those  with 
show  of  hands  about  65  per  cent.  A  hundred  and 
twenty  men  had  turned  from  the  right  to  the  wrong  — 
that  is,  had  more  incorrect  judgments  when  they  saw 
how  the  other  men  voted  than  when  they  were  left  to 
themselves. 

It  is  true  that  those  who  turned  from  worse  to  better 
by  seeing  the  vote  of  the  others  were  in  a  slight  majority, 
bringing  the  total  vote  5  per  cent,  upward,  but  this  dif- 
ference is  so  small  that  it  could  just  as  well  be  ex- 
plained by  the  mere  fact  that  this  act  of  public  voting 
reenforced  the  attention  and  improved  a  little  the  total 

[201] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
vote  through  this  stimulation  of  the  social  conscious- 
ness. It  is  not  surprising  that  the  mere  seeing  of  the 
votes  in  such  cases  has  such  a  small  effect,  incompa- 
rable with  that  of  a  real  discussion  in  which  new  vistas 
are  opened,  inasmuch  as  in  40  per  cent,  of  the  cases 
the  majority  was  evidently  on  the  wrong  side  from  the 
start.  Those  who  are  swept  away  by  the  majority 
would  therefore  hi  40  per  cent,  of  the  cases  be  carried 
to  the  wrong  side.  I  went  still  further  and  examined 
by  psychological  methods  the  degree  of  suggestibility 
of  those  four  hundred  participants  in  the  experiment, 
and  the  results  showed  that  the  fifty  most  suggestible 
men  profited  from  the  seeing  of  the  vote  of  the  majority 
no  more  than  the  fifty  least  suggestible  ones.  In  both 
cases  there  was  an  increase  of  about  5  per  cent,  correct 
judgments.  I  drew  also  from  this  the  conclusion  that 
the  show  of  hands  was  ineffective  as  a  direct  influence 
toward  correctness,  and  that  it  had  only  the  slight  in- 
direct value  of  forcing  the  men  to  concentrate  their 
attention  better  on  those  cards.  All  results,  therefore, 
point  in  the  same  direction:  it  is  really  the  argument 
which  brings  a  cooperating  group  nearer  to  the  truth, 
and  not  the  seeing  how  the  other  men  vote.  Hence 
the  psychologist  has  every  reason  to  be  satisfied  with 
the  jury  system  as  long  as  the  women  are  kept  out  of  it, 

[202] 


EFFICIENCY  ON  THE  FARM 


VI 
EFFICIENCY  ON  THE  FARM 

WE  CITY  people  who  are  feeding  on  city-made  public 
opinion  forget  that  we  are  in  the  minority,  and  that  the 
interests  of  the  fifty  millions  of  the  rural  population 
are  fundamental  for  the  welfare  of  the  whole  nation. 
Moreover,  the  life  of  the  city  itself  is  most  intimately 
intertwined  with  the  work  on  the  farm;  banking  and 
railroading,  industrial  enterprises  and  commercial  life, 
are  dependent  upon  the  farmers'  credit  and  the  farmers' 
prosperity.  The  nation  is  beginning  to  understand  that 
it  would  be  a  calamity  indeed  if  the  tempting  attractive- 
ness of  the  city  should  drain  off  still  more  the  human 
material  from  the  village  and  from  the  field.  The  cry 
"back  to  the  land"  goes  through  the  whole  world,  and  this 
means  more  than  a  camping  tour  in  the  holidays  and 
some  magazine  numbers  of  Country  Life  in  America  by 
the  fireplace.  Its  meaning  ought  to  be  that  every  nation 
which  wants  to  remain  healthy  and  strong  must  take 
care  that  the  obvious  advantages  of  metropolitan  life 
[205] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
are  balanced  by  the  joys  and  gains  of  the  villager  who 
lacks  the  shop  windows  and  the  exciting  turmoil. 

Certainly  the  devices  of  the  city  inventor,  the  tele- 
phone and  the  motor  car  and  a  thousand  other  gifts  of 
the  last  generation,  have  overcome  much  of  the  lone- 
liness, and  the  persistent  efforts  of  the  states  to  secure 
better  roads  and  better  schools  in  the  country  have  en- 
riched and  multiplied  the  values  of  rural  life.  Yet  the 
most  direct  aid  is,  after  all,  that  which  increases  the 
efficiency  of  farming  itself .  In  this  respect,  too,  we  feel 
the  rapid  progress  throughout  the  country.  The  im- 
provements in  method  which  the  scientific  efforts  of 
all  nations  have  secured  are  eagerly  distributed  to  the 
remotest  corners.  The  agents  of  the  governmental 
Bureau  of  Agriculture,  the  agricultural  county  demon- 
strators, the  rapidly  spreading  agricultural  schools, 
take  care  that  the  farmer's  "commonsense"  with  its 
backwardness  and  narrowness  be  replaced  by  an  in- 
sight which  results  from  scientific  experiment  and  exact 
calculation.  Agricultural  science,  based  on  physics 
and  chemistry,  on  botany  and  zoology,  has  made  won- 
derful strides  during  the  last  few  decades.  It  must  be 
confessed  that  the  self-complaisance  of  the  farmer  and 
the  power  of  tradition  have  offered  not  a  little  resist- 
ance to  the  practical  application  of  the  knowledge 
[2061 


EFFICIENCY  ON  THE  FARM 

which  the  agricultural  experiments  establish,  and  the 
blending  of  the  well-known  conservative  attitude  of 
the  farmer  with  a  certain  carelessness  and  deficiency 
in  education  has  kept  the  production  of  the  American 
farm  still  far  below  the  yielding  power  which  the  present 
status  of  knowledge  would  allow.  Other  nations,  more 
trained  in  hard  labour  and  painstaking  economy  and 
accustomed  to  most  careful  rotation  of  crops,  obtain  a 
much  richer  harvest  from  the  acre,  even  where  the  na- 
ture of  the  soil  is  poor.  But  the  longing  of  the  farmer 
for  the  best  methods  is  rapidly  growing,  too,  and  in 
many  a  state  he  shows  a  splendid  eagerness  to  try  new 
ways,  to  develop  new  plans,  and  to  progress  with  the 
advance  of  science. 

In  such  an  age  it  seems  fair  to  ask  whether  the  circle 
of  sciences  which  are  made  contributory  to  the  efficiency 
of  the  agriculturist  has  been  drawn  large  enough.  It 
is,  of  course,  most  important  for  every  farmer  to  know 
the  soil  and  whatever  may  grow  on  it  and  feed  on  it. 
All  the  new  discoveries  as  to  the  power  of  phosphates  to 
increase  the  crop  or  as  to  the  part  which  protozoa  play 
in  the  inhibition  of  fertility,  or  the  influence  of  parasites 
on  the  enemies  of  the  crops  and  the  numberless  natural- 
istic details  of  this  type,  are  certainly  most  important. 
Yet  does  it  not  look  as  if  in  all  the  operations  which  the 

[207] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
worker  on  the  land  has  to  perform  everything  is  care- 
fully considered  by  science,  and  only  the  chief  thing  left 
out,  the  worker  and  his  work?  He  is  earnestly  advised 
as  to  every  detail  in  the  order  of  nature:  he  learns  by 
what  chemical  substances  to  improve  the  soil,  what 
seeds  are  to  be  used,  and  when  they  are  to  be  planted, 
what  breeds  of  animals  to  raise  and  how  to  feed  them. 
But  no  scientific  interest  has  thrown  light  on  his  own 
activity  in  planting  the  seed  and  gathering  the  harvest, 
in  picking  the  fruit  and  caring  for  the  stock. 

No  doubt,  the  agent  of  some  trust  has  recommended 
to  him  the  newest  machines;  but  their  help  still  belongs, 
after  all,  to  the  part  of  outer  nature.  They  are  phys- 
ical apparatus,  and  even  if  the  farmer  uses  nowadays 
dynamite  to  loosen  the  soil,  all  this  new-fashioned 
power  yet  remains  scientific  usage  of  the  knowledge  of 
nature.  But  behind  all  this  physical  and  chemical 
material  in  which  and  through  which  the  farmer  and 
his  men  are  working  stand  the  farmer  himself  with  his 
intelligence,  and  his  men  themselves  with  their  lack  of 
intelligence.  This  human  factor,  this  bundle  of  ideas 
and  volitions  and  feelings  and  judgments,  must  ulti- 
mately be  the  centre  of  the  whole  process.  There  is 
no  machine  which  can  do  its  best  if  it  is  wrongly  used, 
no  tool  which  can  be  effective  if  it  is  not  set  to  work  by 
[208] 


EFFICIENCY  ON  THE  FARM 

an  industrious  will.  The  human  mind  has  to  keep  in 
motion  that  whole  great  mechanism  of  farm  life.  It  is  the 
farmer's  foresight  and  insight  which  plough  and  plant 
and  fill  the  barns.  For  a  long  while  the  average  farmer 
thought  about  nature,  too,  that  he  could  know  all  he 
needed,  if  he  applied  his  homemade  knowledge.  That 
time  has  passed,  and  even  he  relies  on  the  meteorology 
telegram  of  the  scientific  bureaus  rather  than  on  the 
weather  rules  of  his  grandfather.  But  when  it  comes 
to  the  mental  processes  which  enter  into  the  agricul- 
tural work,  he  would  think  it  queer  to  consult  science. 
He  would  not  even  be  aware  that  there  is  anything  to 
know.  The  soil  and  the  seed  and  even  the  plough  and  the 
harvester  are  objects  about  which  you  can  learn.  But 
the  attention  with  which  the  man  is  to  do  his  work,  the 
memory,  the  perception,  the  ideas  which  make  them- 
selves felt,  the  emotions  and  the  will  which  control  the 
whole  work,  would  never  be  objects  about  which  he 
would  seek  new  knowledge;  they  are  no  problems  for 
hun,  they  are  taken  for  granted. 

Yet  we  have  to-day  a  full-fledged  science  which  does 
deal  with  these  mental  processes.  Psychology  speaks 
about  real  things  as  much  as  chemistry,  and  the  laws  of 
mental  life  may  be  relied  on  now  more  safely  than  the 
laws  of  meteorology.  It  seems  unnatural  that  those 

[209] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
who  have  the  interests  of  agriculture  at  heart  should 
turn  the  attention  of  the  farmer  exclusively  to  the  re- 
sults of  the  material  sciences  and  ignore  completely  the 
thorough,  scientific  interest  in  the  processes  of  the  mind. 
To  be  sure,  until  recently  we  had  the  same  shortcoming 
in  industrial  enterprises  of  the  factories.  Manufacturer 
and  workingman  looked  as  if  hypnotized  at  the  ma- 
chines, forgetting  that  those  wheels  of  steel  were  not 
the  only  working  powers  under  the  factory  roof.  A 
tremendous  effort  was  devoted  to  the  study  and  im- 
provement of  the  industrial  apparatus  and  of  the  raw 
material,  while  the  mental  fitness  and  the  mental 
method  of  the  army  of  workingmen  was  dealt  with  un- 
scientifically and  high-handedly.  But  within  the  last 
few  years  the  attention  of  the  industrial  world  has  been 
seriously  turned  to  the  matter-of-course  fact  that  the 
workman's  mind  is  more  important  than  the  machine 
and  the  material,  if  the  highest  economic  output  is  to 
be  secured.  The  great  movement  for  scientific  man- 
agement, however  much  or  little  its  original  plans  may 
survive,  has  certainly  once  for  all  convinced  the  world 
that  the  study  of  the  man  and  his  functions  ought  to  be 
the  chief  interest  of  the  market,  even  in  our  electrical 
age;  and  the  more  modest  movement  for  vocational 
guidance  has  emphasized  this  personal  factor  from  so- 
[2101 


EFFICIENCY  ON  THE  FARM 

ciological  motives.  At  last  the  psychologists  them- 
selves approached  the  problem  of  the  worker  in  the 
factory,  began  to  examine  his  individual  fitness  for  his 
work,  and  to  devise  tests  in  order  to  select  quickly  those 
whose  inborn  mental  capacity  makes  them  particularly 
adjusted  to  special  lines  of  work.  Above  all,  they 
examined  the  methods  by  which  the  individual  learned 
and  got  his  training  in  the  technical  activities,  they  be- 
gan to  determine  the  exact  conditions  which  secured 
the  greatest  amount  of  the  best  possible  work  with  the 
greatest  saving  of  human  energy.  All  this  is  certainly 
still  at  its  beginning,  but  even  if  the  solutions  of  the 
problems  are  still  insufficient,  the  problems  themselves 
will  not  again  be  lost  sight  of.  The  most  obvious 
acknowledgment  of  the  importance  of  these  demands 
lies  in  the  fact  that  already  the  quack  advice  of  pseudo- 
psychologists  is  offered  from  many  sides.  The  up-to- 
date  manufacturer  knows,  even  if  he  is  not  interested 
in  the  social  duties  involved,  that  the  mere  economic 
interest  demands  a  much  more  serious  study  of  the 
workingman's  mind  than  any  one  thought  of  ten  years 
ago. 

This  change  must  finally  come  into  the  agricultural 
circles.  The  consequences  of  the  usual,  or  rather  in- 
variable neglect,  are  felt  less  in  agriculture  than  in 

[211] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
industry,  because  the  work  is  so  much  more  scattered. 
The  harmful  effects  of  poor  adjustment  and  improper 
training  must  be  noticed  more  easily  where  many 
thousands  are  crowded  together  within  the  walls  of  the 
same  mill.  But  it  would  be  an  illusion  to  fancy  that 
the  damage  and  the  loss  of  efficiency  are  therefore  less 
in  the  open  field  than  in  the  narrow  factory.  On  the 
contrary,  the  conditions  favour  the  workshop.  There 
everybody  stands  under  constant  supervision,  and  what 
is  still  more  important,  always  has  the  chance  for  imi- 
tation. Every  improvement,  almost  every  new  trick 
and  every  new  hand  movement  which  succeeds  with 
one,  is  taken  up  by  his  neighbour  and  spreads  over  the 
establishment.  The  principle  of  farm  work  is  isola- 
tion. One  hardly  knows  what  another  is  doing,  and 
where  several  do  cooperate,  they  are  generally  engaged 
in  different  functions.  Even  where  the  farmhands 
work  in  large  groups,  the  attitude  is  much  less  that  of 
team  work  than  of  a  mere  summation  of  individual 
workers.  In  the  country  as  a  whole  the  man  who 
works  on  the  farm  has  to  gather  his  experience  for  him- 
self, has  to  secure  every  advance  for  himself,  and  has  to 
miss  the  benefit  which  the  social  atmosphere  of  indus- 
trial work  everywhere  furnishes. 

It  would  be  utterly  misleading  to  think  that  the  long 
[212] 


EFFICIENCY  ON  THE  FARM 

history  of  mankind's  agricultural  pursuits  ought  to  have 
been  sufficient  to  bring  together  the  necessary  experi- 
ence. The  analysis  of  the  vocational  activities  has 
given  every  evidence  that  even  the  oldest  functions  are 
performed  in  an  impractical,  inefficient  way.  The 
students  of  scientific  management  have  demonstrated 
how  the  work  of  the  mason,  as  old  as  civilization  itself, 
is  carried  on  every  day  in  every  land  with  methods 
which  can  be  improved  at  once,  as  soon  as  a  scientific 
study  of  the  motions  themselves  is  started.  It  could 
hardly  be  otherwise,  and  the  principle  might  be  illus- 
trated by  any  chance  case.  If  a  girl  were  left  to  herself 
to  learn  typewriting,  the  best  way  would  seem  to  her 
to  be  to  pick  out  the  letters  with  her  two  forefingers. 
She  would  slowly  seek  the  right  key  for  each  letter  and 
press  it  down.  In  this  way  she  would  be  in  the  pleas- 
ant position  of  producing  a  little  letter  after  only  half 
an  hour  of  trial.  As  soon  as  she  has  succeeded  with 
such  a  first  half  page,  she  will  see  only  the  one  goal  of 
increasing  the  rapidity  and  accuracy,  and  by  hard  train- 
ing she  will  indeed  gain  steadily  in  speed  and  correct- 
ness, and  after  a  year  she  will  write  rather  quickly. 
Yet  she  will  never  succeed  in  reaching  the  ideal  pro- 
ficiency. In  order  to  attain  the  highest  point,  she 
ought  to  have  started  with  an  entirely  different  method. 

[213] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
She  ought  to  have  begun  at  once  to  use  all  her  fingers, 
and,  moreover,  to  use  them  without  looking  at  the  key- 
board. If  she  had  started  with  this  difficult  method 
she  would  never  have  succeeded  in  writing  a  letter  the 
first  day.  It  would  have  taken  weeks  to  reach  that 
achievement  which  the  simpler  method  yields  almost 
at  once.  But  in  plodding  along  on  this  harder  road 
she  would  finally  outdistance  the  competitor  with  the 
commonsense  method  and  would  finally  gain  the  high- 
est degree  of  efficiency.  This  is  exactly  the  situation 
everywhere.  Commonsense  always  grasps  for  those 
methods  which  quickly  lead  to  a  modest  success,  but 
which  can  never  lead  to  maximum  achievement.  On 
the  other  hand,  up  to  the  days  of  modern  experimental 
psychology  the  interest  was  not  focussed  on  the  mental 
operations  involved  in  industrial  life  as  such.  Every- 
thing was  left  to  commonsense,  and  therefore  it  is  not 
surprising  that  the  farmhand  like  the  workingman  in 
the  mill  has  never  hit  upon  the  one  method  which  is 
best,  as  all  his  instincts  and  natural  tendencies  had  to 
lead  him  to  the  second  or  third  best  method,  since  these 
alone  give  immediate  results. 

A  highly  educated  man  who  spent  his  youth  in  a 
corn-raising  community  reports  to  me  the  following 
psychological   observation:    However   industrious   all 
[214] 


EFFICIENCY  ON  THE  FARM 

the  boys  of  the  village  were,  one  of  them  was  always 
able  to  husk  about  a  half  as  much  more  corn  than  any 
one  else.  He  seemed  to  have  an  unusual  talent  for 
handling  so  many  more  ears  than  any  one  of  his  rivals 
could  manage.  Once  my  friend  had  a  chance  to  in- 
quire of  the  man  with  the  marvellous  skill  how  he  suc- 
ceeded in  outdoing  them  so  completely,  and  then  he 
learned  that  no  talent  was  involved,  but  a  simple  psy- 
chological device,  almost  a  trick.  The  worker  who 
husks  the  ear  is  naturally  accustomed  to  make  his 
hand  and  finger  movements  while  his  eyes  are  fixed  on 
them.  As  soon  as  one  ear  is  husked,  the  attention 
turns  to  the  next,  the  eyes  look  around  and  find  the 
one  which  best  offers  itself  to  be  handled  next.  When 
the  mind,  under  the  control  of  the  eyes,  has  made  its 
choice,  the  mental  impulse  is  given  to  the  arms,  and  the 
hands  take  hold  of  it.  Yet  it  is  evident  that  these 
manipulations  can  be  carried  on  just  as  well  without  the 
constant  supervision  of  the  eyes.  The  eye  is  needed 
only  to  find  the  corn  and  to  direct  the  impulse  of  the 
hands  toward  picking  it  up.  But  the  eye  is  no  longer 
necessary  for  the  detailed  movements  in  husking. 
Hence  it  must  be  possible  to  perform  that  act  of  vision 
and  that  choice  of  the  second  ear  while  the  hands  are 
still  working  on  the  first.  The  initial  stage  of  the  work 

[2151 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
on  the  second  ear  then  overlaps  the  final  stages  of  the 
work  with  the  first,  and  this  must  mean  a  considerable 
saving  of  time. 

This  was  exactly  the  scheme  on  which  that  marvel 
of  the  village  had  struck.  He  had  forced  on  himself 
this  artificial  breaking  of  the  attention,  and  had  trained 
himself  to  have  his  eyes  performing  their  work  inde- 
pendent of  the  activity  of  the  hands.  My  friend  as- 
sures me  that  as  soon  as  he  had  heard  of  the  trick,  there 
was  no  difficulty  in  his  imitating  it,  and  immediately 
the  number  of  ears  which  he  was  able  to  husk  in  a  given 
time  was  increased  by  30  per  cent.  The  mere  im- 
mediate instinct  would  always  keep  the  eye  move- 
ment and  the  hand  movements  coupled  together.  A 
certain  artificial  effort  is  necessary  to  overcome  this 
natural  coordination.  But  if  this  secret  scheme  had 
been  known  to  all  the  boys  in  the  village,  ten  would 
have  been  able  to  perform  what  fifteen  did.  Of  course 
this  is  an  utterly  trivial  incident,  and  where  my  friend 
husked  corn  in  his  boyhood  days,  to-day  probably 
the  cornharvester  is  doing  it  more  quickly  anyhow. 
But  as  long  as  real  scientific  effort  has  not  been  applied 
toward  examining  the  details,  we  have  to  rely  on  such 
occasional  observations  in  order  at  first  to  establish 
the  principle.  Every  one  knows  that  just  such  illus- 
[2161 


EFFICIENCY  ON  THE  FARM 

trations  might  as  well  be  taken  from  the  picking  of 
berries,  in  which  the  natural  method  is  probably  an 
absurd  waste  of  energy,  and  yet  which  in  itself  seems 
so  insignificant  that  up  to  present  days  no  scientific 
efforts  have  been  made  to  find  out  the  ideal  methods. 

Similar  accidental  observations  are  suggested  by  the 
well-known  experiments  with  shovelling  carried  on  in  the 
interest  of  industry,  where  the  shovelling  of  coal  and  of 
pig  iron  demanded  a  careful  investigation  into  the  best 
conditions  for  using  the  shovel.  It  was  found  that  it  is 
an  unreasonable  waste  of  energy  to  use  the  same  size 
and  form  of  tool  for  lifting  the  heavy  and  the  light 
material.  With  the  same  size  of  shovel  the  iron  will 
make  such  a  heavy  load  that  the  energies  are  exhausted, 
and  the  coal  will  give  such  a  light  load  that  the  energies 
are  not  sufficiently  made  use  of.  It  became  necessary 
to  determine  the  ideal  load  with  which  the  greatest 
amount  of  work  with  the  slightest  fatigue  could  be 
performed,  and  that  demanded  a  much  larger  shovel  for 
the  light  than  for  the  heavy  substance.  Exactly  this 
situation  repeats  itself  with  the  spade  of  the  farmer. 
The  conditions  are  somewhat  different,  but  the  prin- 
ciple must  be  the  same.  Of  course  the  farmer  may  use 
spades  of  different  sizes,  but  he  is  far  from  bringing 
the  product  of  spade  surface  and  weight  to  a  definite 

[217] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
equation.  Sometimes  he  wastes  his  energies  and  some- 
times he  exhausts  them.  But  it  is  not  only  a  question 
of  the  size  of  shovel  or  spade.  The  whole  position  of 
the  body,  the  position  of  the  hands,  the  direction  of  the 
attention,  the  rhythm  of  the  movement,  the  pauses  be- 
tween the  successive  actions,  the  optical  judgment  as 
to  the  place  where  the  spade  ought  to  cut  the  ground, 
the  distribution  of  energy,  the  respiration,  and  many 
similar  parts  of  the  total  psychophysical  process  de- 
mand exact  analysis  if  the  greatest  efficiency  is  to  be 
reached.  Everybody  knows  what  an  amount  of  atten- 
tion the  golf  player  has  to  give  to  every  detail  of  his 
movement,  and  yet  it  would  be  easier  to  discover  by 
haphazard  methods  the  best  way  to  handle  the  golf 
stick  than  to  use  the  spade  to  the  best  effect. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  better  method  is  not  at  all 
necessarily  the  more  difficult  one.  More  effort  is 
needed  at  the  beginning  to  acquire  an  exactly  adjusted 
scheme  of  movement,  but  as  soon  as  the  well-organized 
activity  has  become  habitual,  it  will  realize  itself  with 
less  inner  interference.  For  the  educated  it  is  no  harder 
to  speak  correct  grammar  than  to  speak  slang,  and  it  is 
no  more  difficult  to  write  orthographically  than  to  in- 
dulge in  chaotic  spelling,  just  as  in  every  field  it  is  no 
harder  to  show  good  manners  than  to  behave  rudely. 
[218] 


EFFICIENCY  ON  THE  FARM 

If  the  sciences  of  digging  and  chopping,  of  reaping  and 
raking,  of  weeding  and  mowing,  of  spraying  and  feeding, 
are  all  postulates  of  the  future,  each  can  transform  the 
chance  methods  into  exact  ones,  and  that  means  into 
truly  efficient  ones,  only  when  every  element  has  been 
brought  under  the  scrutiny  of  the  psychological  lab- 
oratory. We  must  measure  the  time  in  hundredths  of 
a  second,  must  study  the  psychophysical  conditions  of 
every  movement,  where  not  trees  are  cut  or  hay  raked, 
but  where  the  tools  move  systems  of  levers  which  re- 
cord graphically  the  exact  amount  and  character  of 
every  partial  effect.  The  one  problem  of  the  distri- 
bution of  work  and  rest  alone  is  of  such  tremendous 
importance  for  the  agricultural  work  that  a  real  scienti- 
fic study  of  the  details  might  lead  to  just  as  much 
saving  as  the  introduction  of  new  machinery.  The 
farmhand,  who  would  never  think  of  wasting  his  money, 
wastes  his  energies  by  contracting  big  muscles,  where  a 
better  economized  system  of  movement  would  allow 
him  to  reach  the  same  result  through  the  contraction 
of  smaller  muscles,  which  involves  much  less  energy 
and  much  less  fatigue.  The  loss  by  wrong  bending 
and  wrong  coordination  of  movement  may  be  greater 
than  by  bad  weather. 

Yet  commonsense  can  never  be  sufficient  to  find  the 
[219] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
right  motor  will  impulses.  The  ideal  distribution  of 
pauses  is  extremely  different  from  merely  stopping  the 
work  when  a  state  of  overfatigue  has  been  reached. 
Even  general  scientific  rules  could  not  be  the  last  word. 
Subtle  psychological  tests  would  have  to  be  devised  by 
which  the  plan  for  alternation  between  work  and  rest 
could  be  carefully  adjusted  to  the  individual  needs  of 
every  rural  worker.  The  mere  sensation  of  fatigue  may 
be  entirely  misleading.  It  must  be  brought  into  definite 
relations  to  temperature,  moistness,  character  of  the 
work,  training,  and  other  factors.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  absence  of  fatigue  feeling  would  be  in  itself  no  indi- 
cation that  the  limit  of  safety  has  not  been  passed,  and 
yet  the  work  itself  must  suffer  when  objective  over- 
fatigue  of  the  system  has  begun.  At  the  right  moment 
a  short  interruption  may  secure  again  the  complete 
conditions  for  successful  work.  If  that  moment  has 
passed,  an  exhaustion  may  result  which  can  no  longer 
be  repaired  by  a  short  rest.  Any  wrong  method  of  per- 
forming these  simple  activities,  that  is,  any  method 
which  is  not  based  on  exact  scientific  analysis,  wastes 
the  energies  of  the  workingman,  and  by  that  the  eco- 
nomic means  of  the  farm  owner,  and  indirectly  the 
economic  resources  of  the  whole  nation.  In  the  Har- 
vard Psychological  Laboratory  we  are  at  present  en- 
[2201 


EFFICIENCY  ON  THE  FARM 

gaged  in  the  investigation  of  such  an  apparently  trivial 
function  as  sewing  by  hand.  The  finger  which  guides 
the  needle  is  attached  to  a  system  of  levers  which  write 
an  exact  graphic  record  of  every  stitch  on  a  revolving 
drum.  And  the  deeper  we  enter  into  this  study  the 
more  we  discover  that  such  a  movement,  of  which  every 
seamstress  and  every  girl  who  makes  her  clothes  feels 
that  she  knows  everything,  contains  an  abundance  of 
important  features  of  which  we  do  not  as  yet  know  any- 
thing. With  the  same  scientific  exactitude  the  labora- 
tory must  investigate  the  milking,  or  the  making  of 
butter,  the  feeding  of  the  cattle  and  the  picking  of  the 
fruit,  the  use  of  the  scythe  and  the  axe,  the  pruning  and 
the  husking.  The  mere  fact  that  every  one,  even  with 
the  least  skill,  is  able  to  carry  out  such  movements 
with  some  result,  does  not  in  the  least  guarantee  that 
any  one  carries  them  out  to-day  witJi  the  best  result 
possible. 

The  governmental  experiment  station  ought  to  es- 
tablish regular  psychological  laboratories,  in  which  the 
mental  processes  involved  in  the  farmer's  activity 
would  be  examined  with  the  same  loyalty  to  modern 
science  with  which  the  chemical  questions  of  the  soil 
or  the  biological  questions  of  the  parasites  are  furthered. 
Only  such  investigations  could  give  the  right  cues  also 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
to  the  manufacturers  of  farming  implements.  At  pres- 
ent the  machines  are  constructed  with  the  single  pur- 
pose of  greatest  physical  usefulness,  and  the  farmer  who 
uses  them  has  to  adjust  himself  to  them.  The  only 
human  factor  which  enters  into  the  construction  so 
far  has  been  a  certain  desire  for  comfort  and  ease  of 
handling.  But  as  soon  as  the  mental  facts  involved 
are  really  examined,  they  ought  to  become  decisive  for 
the  details  of  the  machine.  The  handle  which  controls 
the  lever,  and  every  other  part,  must  be  placed  so  that 
the  will  finds  the  smallest  possible  resistance,  so  that 
one  psychical  impulse  prepares  the  way  for  the  next, 
and  then  a  maximum  of  activity  can  be  reached  with 
the  smallest  possible  psychophysical  energy.  Such  a 
psychological  department  of  the  agricultural  station 
could  be  expanded,  and  study  not  only  the  mental  con- 
ditions of  farming,  but  examine  also  the  psychological 
factors  which  belong  indirectly  to  the  sphere  of  agri- 
cultural work.  It  may  examine  the  mental  effects 
which  the  various  products  of  the  farm  stir  up  in  the 
customers.  The  feelings  and  emotions,  the  volitions 
and  ideas  which  are  suggested  by  the  vegetables  and 
fruits,  the  animals  and  the  flowers,  are  not  without 
importance  for  the  success  in  the  market.  The  psy- 
chology of  colour  and  taste,  of  smell  and  touch  and 
[222] 


EFFICIENCY  ON  THE  FARM 

form,  may  be  useful  knowledge  for  the  scientific  farmer, 
and  even  his  methods  of  packing  and  preparing  for  the 
market,  of  displaying  and  advertising,  may  be  greatly 
improved  by  contact  with  applied  psychology. 

At  least  one  of  the  psychological  side  problems  de- 
mands especial  attention,  the  mental  life  of  the  animals. 
Animal  psychology  is  no  longer  made  up  of  hunting 
stories  and  queer  observations  on  ants  and  wasps,  and 
gossip  about  pet  cats  and  dogs  and  canary  birds.  It 
has  become  an  exact  science,  which  is  housed  in  the 
psychological  laboratories  of  the  universities.  And 
with  this  change  the  centre  of  interest  has  shifted,  too. 
The  mind  of  the  animals  is  not  studied  in  order  to  sat- 
isfy our  zoological  interest,  but  really  to  serve  an  under- 
standing of  the  mental  functions.  It  was  therefore 
appropriate  to  introduce  those  methods  which  had 
been  tested  in  human  psychology.  In  our  Harvard 
Psychological  Laboratory,  in  which  a  whole  floor  of  the 
building  is  devoted  exclusively  to  animal  experiments 
under  specialists,  single  functions  like  memory  or  atten- 
tion or  emotion  are  tested  in  earthworms  or  turtles  or 
pigeons  or  monkeys,  and  the  results  are  no  less  accurate 
than  those  of  subtlest  human  work.  But  this  experi- 
mental animal  psychology  has  so  far  served  theoretical 
interests  only.  It  stands  where  human  psychology 

[223] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
stood  before  the  contact  with  pedagogy,  medicine,  law, 
commerce,  and  industry  suggested  particular  formula- 
tions of  the  experiments.  Such  contact  with  the  needs 
of  practical  life  ought  to  be  secured  now  for  animal  psy- 
chology. The  farmer  who  has  to  do  with  cows  and  swine 
and  sheep,  with  dogs  and  horses,  with  chickens  and 
geese,  with  pigeons  and  bees,  ought  to  have  an  immedi- 
ate interest  to  seek  this  contact.  But  his  concern  ought 
to  go  still  further.  He  has  to  fight  the  animals  that 
threaten  his  harvest. 

The  farmer  himself  knows  quite  well  how  important 
the  psychical  behaviour  of  the  animals  is  for  his  success. 
He  knows  how  the  milk  of  the  cows  is  influenced  by 
emotional  excitement,  and  how  the  handling  of  horses 
demands  an  understanding  of  their  mental  dispositions 
and  temperaments.  Sometimes  he  even  works  already 
with  primitive  psychological  methods.  He  makes  use 
of  the  mental  instinct  which  draws  insects  to  the  light 
when  he  attracts  the  dangerous  moths  with  light  at 
night  in  order  to  destroy  them.  Ultimately  all  the 
traps  and  nets  with  which  the  enemies  of  the  crop  are 
caught  are  schemes  for  which  psychotechnical  calcula- 
tions are  decisive.  The  means  for  breaking  the  horses, 
down  to  the  whip  and  the  spur  and  the  blinders,  are 
after  all  the  tools  of  applied  psychology.  The  manu- 

[224] 


EFFICIENCY  ON  THE  FARM 

facturer  is  already  beginning  to  supply  the  farmer  with 
some  practical  psychology :  dogs  which  despise  the  ordi- 
nary dog  biscuits,  seem  quite  satisfied  with  the  same 
cheap  foods  when  they  are  manufactured  in  the  form  of 
bones.  The  dog  first  plays  with  them  and  then  eats 
them.  There  is  no  reason  why  everything  should  be 
left  to  mere  tradition  and  chance  in  a  field  in  which  the 
methods  are  sufficiently  developed  to  give  exact  prac- 
tical results,  as  soon  as  distinct  practical  questions  are 
raised.  There  would  be  no  difficulty  in  measuring  the 
reaction  times  of  the  horses  in  thousandths  of  a  second 
for  optical  and  acoustical  and  tactual  impressions,  or  in 
studying  the  influence  of  artificial  colour  effects  on  the 
various  insects  in  the  service  of  agriculture. 

Especial  importance  may  be  attached  to  those  in- 
vestigations in  animal  psychology  which  trace  the 
inheritance  of  individual  characteristics.  The  labora- 
tory psychologist  studies,  for  instance,  the  laws  accord- 
ing to  which  qualities  like  savageness  and  tameness 
are  distributed  in  the  succeeding  generations.  He 
studies  the  proportions  of  those  traits  in  hundreds  of 
mice,  which  are  especially  fit  for  the  experiment  on 
account  of  their  quick  multiplication.  But  this  may 
lead  immediately  to  important  results  for  the  farmers 
with  reference  to  mental  traits  in  breeding  animals.  It 
[225] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
would  be  misleading  if  it  were  denied  that  all  this  is  a 
programme  to-day  and  not  a  realization,  a  promise  and 
not  a  fulfilment.  The  field  is  practically  still  unculti- 
vated. But  in  a  time  in  which  the  nation  is  anxious 
to  economize  the  national  resources,  which  were  too  long 
wasted,  and  in  which  the  need  of  helping  the  farmer 
and  of  intensifying  the  values  of  rural  life  is  felt  so 
generally,  it  would  be  reckless  to  ignore  a  promise  the 
fulfilment  of  which  seems  so  near.  To  be  sure,  the 
farmers  cultivated  their  fields  through  thousands  of 
years  without  chemistry,  just  as  they  do  their  daily  work 
to-day  without  psychology,  but  nobody  doubts  that  the 
introduction  of  scientific  chemistry  into  farming  has 
brought  the  most  valuable  help  to  the  national,  and  to 
the  world  economy.  The  time  seems  really  ripe  for 
experimental  psychology  to  play  the  same  role  for  the 
benefit  of  mankind,  which  in  the  future  as  in  the  past  will 
always  be  prosperous  only  when  the  farmer  succeeds. 


226 


SOCIAL  SINS  IN  ADVERTISING 


VII 
SOCIAL  SINS  IN  ADVERTISING 

THERE  is  one  industry  in  the  world  which  may  be 
called,  more  than  any  other,  a  socializing  factor  in 
our  modern  life.  The  industry  of  advertising  binds 
men  together  and  tightly  knits  the  members  of  society 
into  one  compact  mass.  Every  one  in  the  big  market- 
place of  civilization  has  his  demands  and  has  some 
supply.  But  in  order  to  link  supply  and  demand,  the 
offering  must  be  known.  The  industry  which  over- 
comes the  isolation  of  man  with  his  wishes  and  with  his 
wares  lays  the  real  foundation  of  the  social  structure. 
It  is  not  surprising  that  it  has  taken  gigantic  dimensions 
and  that  uncounted  millions  are  turning  the  wheels  of 
the  advertising  factory.  The  influence  and  civilizing 
power  of  the  means  of  propaganda  go  far  beyond  the 
help  in  the  direct  exchange  of  goods.  The  advertiser 
makes  the  modern  newspaper  and  magazine  possible. 
These  mightiest  agencies  of  public  opinion  and  intellec- 
tual culture  are  supported,  and  their  technical  perfec- 

[229] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
tion  secured,  by  those  who  pay  their  business  tax  in  the 
form  of  advertisements. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  would  appear  natural  to 
have  just  as  much  interest  and  energy  and  incessant 
thought  devoted  to  this  very  great  and  significant  in- 
dustry as  to  any  branch  of  manufacturing.  But  the 
opposite  is  true.  Armies  of  engineers  and  of  scientif- 
ically trained  workers  have  put  half  a  century  of 
scholarly  research  and  experimental  investigation  into 
the  perfecting  of  the  physical  and  chemical  industries. 
The  most  thorough  study  is  devoted  to  the  raw  material 
and  to  the  machines,  to  the  functions  of  the  working- 
man  and  to  everything  which  improves  the  mechanical 
output.  In  striking  contrast  to  this,  the  gigantic  in- 
dustry of  advertising  is  to-day  still  controlled  essen- 
tially by  an  amateurish  impressionism,  by  a  so-called 
commonsense,  which  is  nothing  but  the  uncritical  fol- 
lowing of  a  well-worn  path.  Surely  there  is  an  abun- 
dance of  clever  advertisement  writers  at  work,  and  great 
establishments  make  some  careful  tests  before  they 
throw  their  millions  of  circulars  before  the  public.  Yet 
even  their  so-called  tests  have  in  no  way  scientific  char- 
acter. They  are  simply  based  on  watching  the  success 
in  practical  life,  and  the  success  is  gained  by  instinct. 
Commonsense  tells  even  the  most  superficial  advertiser 
[230] 


SOCIAL  SINS  IN  ADVERTISING 

that  a  large  announcement  will  pay  more  than  a  small 
one,  an  advertisement  in  a  paper  with  a  large  circula- 
tion more  than  in  a  paper  with  a  few  subscribers,  one 
with  a  humorous  or  emotional  or  exciting  text  more  than 
one  with  a  tiresome  and  stale  text.  He  also  knows  that 
the  cover  page  in  a  magazine  is  worth  more  than  the 
inner  pages,  that  a  picture  draws  attention,  that  a 
repeated  insertion  helps  better  than  a  lonely  one. 
Yet  even  a  score  of  such  rules  would  not  remove  the 
scheme  of  advertising  from  the  commonplaces  of  the 
trade.  They  still  would  not  show  any  trace  of  the  fact 
that  the  methods  of  exact  measurement  and  of  labora- 
tory research  can  be  applied  to  such  problems  of  human 
society. 

Advertising  is  an  appeal  to  the  attention,  to  the  mem- 
ory, to  the  feeling,  to  the  impulses  of  the  reader.  Every 
printed  line  of  advertisement  is  thus  a  lever  which  is 
constructed  to  put  some  mental  mechanism  in  motion. 
The  science  of  the  mental  machinery  is  psychology, 
which  works  on  principles  with  the  exact  methods  of 
the  experiment.  It  seems  unprogressive,  indeed,  if 
just  this  one  industry  neglects  the  help  which  experi- 
mental science  may  furnish.  A  few  slight  beginnings, 
to  be  sure,  have  been  made,  but  not  by  the  men  of 
affairs,  whose  practical  interests  are  involved.  They 

[231] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
have  been  made  by  psychologists  who  in  these  days  of 
carrying  psychology  into  practical  life  have  pushed 
the  laboratory  method  into  the  field  of  advertising. 

The  beginnings  indicated  at  once  that  much  which  is 
sanctioned  by  the  traditions  of  economic  life  will  have 
to  be  fundamentally  revised.  Psychologists,  for  in- 
stance, examined  the  memory  value  of  the  different 
parts  of  the  page.  Little  booklets  were  arranged  in 
which  words  were  placed  in  the  four  quarter  pages. 
The  advertiser  is  accustomed  patiently  to  pay  an  equal 
amount  for  his  quarter  page,  whether  it  is  on  the  left 
hah*  or  the  right,  on  the  lower  or  on  the  upper  part  of 
the  page.  The  experiment  demonstrated  that  the 
words  on  the  upper  right-hand  quarter  had  about 
twice  the  memory  value  of  those  on  the  lower  left. 
The  advertiser  who  is  accustomed  to  spend  for  his 
insertion  on  the  lower  left  the  same  sum  as  for  that 
on  the  upper  right  throws  half  his  expenditure  away. 
He  reaches  only  half  of  the  customers,  or  takes  only  half 
a  grasp  of  those  whom  he  reaches.  This  case,  which  can 
be  easily  demonstrated  by  careful  experiments,  is 
typical  of  the  tremendous  waste  which  goes  on  in  the 
budget  of  the  advertising  community.  And  yet  the 
advertiser  would  not  like  to  act  like  the  poet  who  sings 
his  song  not  caring  whose  heart  he  will  stir. 
[232] 


SOCIAL  SINS  IN  ADVERTISING 
As  long  as  the  psychologist  is  only  aware  of  an  inex- 
cusable waste  of  means  by  lack  of  careful  research  into 
the  psychological  reactions  of  the  reader,  he  may  leave 
the  matter  to  the  business  circles  which  have  to  suffer 
by  their  carelessness.  But  this  economic  wrong  may 
coincide  with  cultural  values  in  other  fields,  and  the 
social  significance  of  the  problem  may  thus  become 
accentuated.  A  problem  of  this  double  import,  eco- 
nomic and  cultural  at  the  same  time,  to-day  faces  pub- 
lishers, advertisers,  and  readers.  It  is  of  recent  origin, 
but  it  has  grown  so  rapidly  and  taken  such  important 
dimensions  that  at  present  it  overshadows  all  other 
debatable  questions  in  the  realm  of  propaganda.  The 
movement  to  which  we  refer  is  the  innovation  of  mixing 
reading  matter  and  advertisements  on  the  same  page. 
In  the  good  old  times  a  monthly  magazine  like  M c- 
Clure's  or  the  American  or  the  Metropolitan  or  the 
Cosmopolitan  showed  an  arrangement  which  allowed  a 
double  interpretation.  One  interpretation,  the  ideal- 
istic one,  was  that  the  magazine  consisted  of  articles 
and  stories  in  solid  unity,  which  formed  the  bulk  of  the 
issue.  In  front  of  this  content,  and  after  it,  pages  with 
advertisements  were  attached.  The  other  interpreta- 
tion, which  suggested  itself  to  the  less  ambitious  reader, 
was  that  the  magazine  consisted  of  a  heap  of  entertain- 

[233] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
ing  advertisement  pages,  between  which  the  read- 
ing matter  was  sandwiched.  But  in  any  case  there 
was  nowhere  mutual  interference.  The  articles  stood 
alone,  and  the  automobiles,  crackers,  cameras,  and  other 
wares  stood  alone,  too.  All  this  has  been  completely 
changed  in  the  last  two  or  three  years.  With  a  few 
remarkable  exceptions  like  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  the 
World's  Work,  and  the  Century,  the  overwhelming  ma- 
jority of  the  monthly  and  weekly  papers  have  gone  over 
to  a  system  by  which  the  tail  of  the  stories  and  articles 
winds  itself  through  the  advertisement  pages,  and  all 
the  advertising  sheets  are  riddled  by  stray  pieces  of 
reading  matter.  The  immediate  purpose  is  of  course 
evident.  If  the  last  dramatic  part  of  the  story  sud- 
denly stops  on  page  15  and  is  continued  on  page  76, 
between  the  announcements  of  breakfast  food  and  a 
new  garter,  the  publisher,  or  rather  the  advertiser, 
hopes,  and  the  publisher  does  not  dare  to  contradict, 
that  some  of  the  emotional  interest  and  excitement  will 
flow  over  from  the  loving  pair  to  the  advertised  articles. 
The  innocent  reader  is  skilfully  to  be  guided  into  the 
advertiser's  paradise. 

We   claimed   that   here   the   economic   innovation, 
whether  profitable  or  not,  has  its  cultural  significance. 
The  sociologists  who  have  thought  seriously  about  the 
[234] 


SOCIAL  SINS  IN  ADVERTISING 

American  type  of  civilization  have  practically  agreed 
in  the  conviction  that  the  shortcoming  of  the  American 
mind  lies  in  its  lack  of  desire  for  harmony  and  unity. 
It  is  an  aesthetic  deficiency  which  counts  not  only  where 
art  and  artificial  beauty  are  in  question,  but  shows  still 
more  in  the  practical  surroundings  and  the  forms  of  life. 
The  nation  which  is  and  always  has  been  controlled  by 
strong  idealistic  moral  impulses  takes  small  care  of  the 
aesthetic  ideals.  The  large  expenditures  for  external 
beautification  must  not  deceive.  Just  as  the  theatre  is 
to  the  American  essentially  entertainment  and  amuse- 
ment and  fashion,  but  least  of  all  a  life  need  for  great 
art,  so  on  the  whole  background  of  daily  life  a  thou- 
sand motives  show  themselves  more  effectively  than 
the  longing  for  inner  unity  and  beautiful  fitness.  The 
masses  who  waste  their  incomes  for  beautiful  clothes, 
not  because  they  are  beautiful,  but  because  they  are 
demanded  by  the  fashion,  patiently  tolerate  the  dirt 
in  the  streets,  the  crowding  of  cars,  the  chewing  of 
gum,  the  vulgar  slang  in  speech,  and  shirt-sleeve 
manners.  But  this  undeveloped  state  of  the  sense  of 
inner  harmony  has  effects  far  beyond  the  mere  outer 
appearances.  The  hysterical  excitement  in  politics,  the 
traditional  indifference  to  corruption  and  crime  up  to 
the  point  where  they  become  intolerable,  the  bewilder- 

[235] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
ing  mixture  of  highest  desire  for  education  and  cheapest 
faith  in  superstitions  and  mysticism  and  quacks,  all 
must  result  from  a  social  mind  in  which  the  aesthetic 
demand  for  harmony  and  proportion  is  insufficiently 
developed.  The  one  great  need  of  the  land  is  a  sys- 
tematic cultivation  of  this  aesthetic  spirit  of  unity.  It 
cannot  be  forced  on  the  millions  by  any  sudden  and 
radical  procedures.  The  steady,  cumulating  influences 
of  the  whole  atmosphere  of  civic  life  must  lead  to  a 
slow  but  persistent  change.  Fortunately,  many  such 
helpful  agencies  are  at  work.  Not  only  the  systematic 
moulding  of  the  child's  mind  by  art  instruction,  and 
of  the  citizen's  mind  by  beautiful  public  buildings,  but 
a  thousand  features  of  the  day  aid  in  bringing  charm 
and  melody  to  the  average  man. 

Seen  from  this  point  of  view  the  new  fashion  in  the 
makeup  of  the  periodical  literature  is  a  barbaric  and 
inexcusable  interference  with  the  process  of  aesthetic 
education.  A  page  on  which  advertisements  and  read- 
ing matter  are  mixed  is  a  mess  which  irritates  and  hurts 
a  mind  of  fine  aesthetic  sensitiveness,  but  which  in  the 
uncultivated  mind  must  ruin  any  budding  desire  for 
subtler  harmony.  The  noises  of  the  street,  with  all  the 
whistles  of  the  factories  and  the  horns  of  the  motor 
cars,  are  bad  enough,  and  the  antinoise  crusade  is  quite 
[236] 


SOCIAL  SINS  IN  ADVERTISING 

in  order.  Yet  the  destructive  influence  of  those  chaotic 
sounds  is  far  weaker  than  the  shrillness  and  restlessness 
of  these  modern  specimens  of  so-called  literature.  The 
mind  is  tossed  up  and  down  and  is  torn  hither  and 
thither,  following  now  a  column  of  text  while  the  adver- 
tisements are  pushing  in  from  both  sides,  and  then  read- 
ing the  latest  advertisement  while  the  serious  text 
is  drawing  the  attention.  It  is  the  quantity  which 
counts.  The  popular  magazines  which  circulate  in  a 
million  copies  and  reach  two  or  three  million  minds  are 
the  loudest  preachers  of  this  sermon  of  bewilderment 
and  scramble.  A  consciousness  on  which  these  tu- 
multuous pages  hammer  day  by  day  must  lose  the  sub- 
tler sense  of  proportionate  harmony  and  must  develop 
an  instinctive  desire  for  harshness  and  crudeness  and 
chaos.  To  overcome  this  riot  of  the  printing  press  is 
thus  a  truly  cultural  task,  and  yet  it  is  evident  that  the 
mere  appeal  to  the  cultural  instinct  will  not  change 
anything  as  long  as  the  publisher  and,  above  all,  the 
advertiser,  are  convinced  that  they  would  have  to  sac- 
rifice their  personal  profit  in  the  interest  of  aesthetic 
education.  If  an  end  is  to  be  hoped  for,  it  can  be  expected 
only  if  it  is  discovered  that  the  calculation  of  profit  is 
erroneous,  too.  But  this  is  after  all  a  question  of  naked 
facts,  and  only  the  scientific  examination  can  decide. 

[237] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
The  problem  might  be  approached  from  various 
sides.  It  was  only  meant  as  a  first  effort  when  I  car- 
ried on  the  following  experiment:  I  had  a  portfolio 
with  twenty-four  large  bristol-board  cards  of  the  size 
of  the  Saturday  Evening  Post.  On  eight  of  those  cards 
I  had  pasted  four  different  advertisements,  each  filling 
a  fourth  of  a  page.  On  some  pages  every  one  of  the 
four  advertisements  took  one  of  four  whole  columns; 
in  other  cases  the  page  was  divided  into  an  upper  and 
lower,  right  and  left  part.  All  the  advertisements  were 
cut  from  magazines,  and  in  all  the  name  of  the  firm  and 
the  object  to  be  sold  could  be  easily  recognized.  On 
the  sixteen  other  pages  the  arrangement  was  different. 
There  only  two  fourths  of  the  page  were  filled  by  two 
advertisements;  the  other  two  fourths  contained  funny 
pictures  with  a  few  words  below.  These  pictures  were 
cut  from  comic  papers.  All  the  pictures  were  of  such 
a  kind  that  they  slightly  attracted  the  attention  by 
their  amusing  content  or  by  the  cleverness  of  the  draw- 
ing, but  never  demanded  any  careful  inspection  or  any 
delay  by  the  reading  of  the  text.  This,  in  most  cases, 
consisted  of  a  few  title  words  like  "The  Widow's  Might," 
"Pause,  father,  is  that  whip  sterilized?"  or  similar 
easily  grasped  descriptions  of  the  story  in  the  picture. 
Even  where  the  text  took  two  lines,  it  was  more  easy 
[2381 


SOCIAL  SINS  IN  ADVERTISING 

to  apperceive  the  picture  and  its  description  than  the 
essentials  of  the  often  rather  chaotic  advertisements. 
By  this  arrangement  we  evidently  had  thirty-two  adver- 
tisements on  the  eight  pages  which  contained  nothing 
else,  and  thirty-two  other  advertisements  on  the  sixteen 
pages  which  contained  hah*  propaganda  and  hah*  pic- 
tures with  text.  All  this  material  was  used  as  a  basis 
for  the  following  test,  in  which  forty-seven  adult  persons 
participated.  All  were  members  of  advanced  psycho- 
logical courses,  partly  men,  partly  women.  None  of 
those  engaged  in  the  experiment  knew  anything  about 
the  purpose  beforehand.  Thus  they  had  no  theories, 
and  I  carefully  avoided  any  suggestion  which  might 
have  drawn  the  attention  in  one  or  another  direction. 

Every  one  had  to  go  through  those  twenty-four  pages 
in  twelve  minutes,  devoting  exactly  thirty  seconds  to 
every  page,  and  a  signal  marked  the  time  when  he  had 
to  pass  to  the  next.  He  was  to  give  his  attention  to 
the  whole  content  of  the  page,  and  as  both  the  pictures 
and  the  advertisements  were  chosen  with  reference  to 
their  being  easily  understood  and  quickly  grasped,  an 
average  time  of  more  than  seven  seconds  for  each  of 
the  four  offerings  on  the  page  was  ample,  even  for  the 
slow  reader.  Of  course  the  time  would  not  have  been 
sufficient  to  read  every  detail  in  the  advertisements, 

[239] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
but  no  one  had  any  interest  in  doing  so,  as  they  were 
instructed  beforehand  to  keep  in  mind  essentially  the 
advertised  article  and  the  firm,  and  in  the  case  of  the 
pictures  a  general  impression  of  the  idea. 

As  soon  as  the  twenty-four  pages  had  been  seen, 
every  one  was  asked  to  write  down  the  ideas  of  five  of 
the  funny  pictures  within  three  minutes.  The  results 
of  this  were  of  no  consequence,  as  the  purpose  was  only 
to  fill  the  interval  of  the  three  minutes  in  order  that  all 
the  memory  pictures  of  the  advertisements  might  settle 
down  in  the  mind  and  that  all  might  have  an  equal  chance 
If  we  had  turned  immediately  to  the  writing  down  of 
firms  and  articles,  the  last  ones  seen  would  have  had 
an  undue  advantage.  But  when  the  three  minutes  had 
been  filled  with  an  effort  to  remember  some  of  the  funny 
pictures  and  to  write  down  their  salient  points,  all  the 
mental  after-images  of  the  pages  had  faded  away,  and  a 
true  memory  picture  was  to  be  produced.  In  the  pres- 
entation care  was  taken  to  have  the  twenty-four  pages 
follow  in  irregular  order,  the  pages  of  straight  advertis- 
ing mixed  with  those  of  the  double  content.  After 
the  three  minutes  every  one  had  to  write  down  as  many 
names  of  firms  with  the  articles  as  his  memory  could  re- 
produce. The  time  was  now  unlimited.  Nothing  else 
was  to  be  added;  the  reference  to  the  particular  adver- 
[240] 


SOCIAL  SINS  IN  ADVERTISING 

tisement  was  entirely  confined  to  the  firm  and  the 
object.  Where  they  knew  the  firm  name  without  the 
object,  or  the  article  without  the  advertiser,  they  had 
to  make  a  dash  to  indicate  the  omission.  The  aim  was  to 
discover  whether  the  thirty-two  advertisements  on  the 
mixed  pages  had  equal  chances  in  the  mind  with  the 
thirty-two  on  the  straight  advertisement  pages.  In 
order  to  have  an  exact  basis  of  comparison,  we  counted 
every  name  1,  and  every  article  1.  Thus  when  firm 
and  object  were  correctly  given  it  was  counted  2. 

Of  course  there  were  very  great  individual  differences. 
It  is  evident  that  a  person  who  would  have  remembered 
all  the  sixty -four  advertisements  on  this  basis  of  cal- 
culation would  have  made  128  points.  The  maximum 
which  was  actually  made  was  in  the  case  of  two  women, 
each  of  whom  reached  50  points.  One  man  reached  49. 
The  lowest  limit  was  touched  in  the  exceptional  case 
of  one  woman  who  made  only  11  points.  The  average 
was  28.4.  These  figures  seem  small,  considering  that 
less  than  a  fourth  were  kept  in  mind,  and  even  by  the 
best  memory  less  than  a  half,  but  it  must  be  considered 
that  in  the  modern  style  of  advertisement  the  memory 
is  burdened  with  many  side  features  of  the  announce- 
ment, and  that  the  result  is  therefore  smaller  than  if 
name  and  article  had  been  memorized  in  an  isolated 
[241] 


[  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
form.  But  these  figures  have  no  relation  to  our  real 
problem.  We  wanted  to  compare  the  memory  fate 
of  the  advertisements  on  the  one  kind  of  pages  with 
that  of  the  parallel  advertisements  on  the  other  land. 
As  soon  as  we  separate  the  two  kinds  of  reproduced 
material  we  find  as  total  result  that  the  forty-seven 
persons  summed  up  570  points  for  the  advertisements 
on  pages  with  comic  pictures,  but  771  for  the  advertise- 
ments on  pages  which  contained  nothing  else.  The 
average  individual  thus  remembered  about  six  whole 
advertisements  out  of  the  thirty-two  on  the  combined 
pages,  and  about  eight  and  a  fifth  of  the  thirty-two  on 
the  straight  pages.  Among  the  forty-seven  persons, 
there  were  thirty-six  who  remembered  the  straight-page 
notices  distinctly  better  than  the  mixed-page  advertise- 
ments, and  only  eleven  of  the  forty-seven  showed  a 
slight  advantage  in  favour  of  the  mixed  pages.  In  the 
case  of  the  men  this  difference  is  distinctly  greater  than 
in  the  case  of  the  women.  Only  two  of  the  fifteen  men 
who  participated  showed  better  reproducing  power  for 
the  mixed  material,  while  nine  of  the  thirty-two  women 
favoured  it.  As  the  advertiser  is  not  interested  in  the 
chance  variations  and  exceptional  cases  among  the 
reading  public,  but  naturally  must  rely  on  the  averages, 
the  results  show  clearly  that  the  propaganda  made  on 


SOCIAL  SINS  IN  ADVERTISING 

pages  which  do  not  contain  anything  but  advertise- 
ments has  more  than  a  third  greater  chances,  as  the 
relation  was  that  of  6  to  8.2. 

The  result  is  hardly  surprising.  We  recognized  that 
the  conditions  for  the  apprehension  of  the  special 
advertisements  are  in  themselves  equally  favourable 
for  both  groups.  As  the  pictures  were  very  easily 
grasped,  it  may  even  be  said  that  there  was  more  time 
left  for  the  study  of  the  advertisements  on  the  mixed 
pages,  and  yet  the  experiment  showed  that  they  had  a 
distinct  disadvantage.  The  self-observation  of  the  ex- 
perimenters leaves  hardly  any  doubt  that  the  cause 
for  this  lies  in  the  different  attitude  which  the  mixed 
pages  demand  from  the  reader.  The  mental  setting 
with  which  those  pictures  or  the  written  matter  is 
observed,  is  fundamentally  different  from  that  which 
those  propaganda  notices  demand.  If  the  mind  is 
adjusted  to  the  pleasure  of  reading  for  its  information 
and  enjoyment,  it  is  not  prepared  for  the  fullest  appre- 
hension of  an  advertisement  as  such.  The  attention 
for  the  notice  on  the  same  page  remains  shallow  as  long 
as  the  entirely  different  kind  of  text  reaches  the  side 
parts  of  the  eye.  On  those  pages,  on  the  other  hand, 
which  contain  announcements  only,  a  uniform  setting 
of  the  mind  prepared  the  way  for  their  fullest  effective- 

[243] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
ness.  The  average  reader  who  glances  over  the  pages 
of  the  magazines  is  not  clearly  aware  of  these  psy- 
chological conditions,  and  yet  that  feeling  of  irritation 
which  results  from  the  mixing  of  reading  matter  and 
propaganda  on  the  same  page  is  a  clear  symptom  of  this 
mental  reaction.  The  mere  fact  that  both  the  adver- 
tisements and  stories  or  anecdotes  or  pictures  are  seen 
in  black  and  white  by  the  retina  of  the  eye,  and  are  in 
the  same  way  producing  the  ideas  of  words  and  forms 
in  the  mind,  does  not  involve  the  real  psychological 
effect  being  the  same.  The  identical  words  read  as  a 
matter  of  information  in  an  instructive  text,  and  read 
as  an  argument  to  the  customer  in  a  piece  of  propaganda, 
set  entirely  different  mental  mechanisms  in  motion. 
The  picture  of  a  girl  seen  with  the  understanding  that  it 
is  the  actress  of  the  latest  success,  or  seen  with  the 
understanding  that  it  is  an  advertisement  for  a  toilet 
preparation,  starts  in  the  whole  psychophysical  system 
different  kinds  of  activities,  which  mutually  inhibit 
each  other.  If  we  anticipate  the  one  form  of  inner 
reaction,  we  make  ourselves  unfit  for  the  opposite. 

An  interesting  light  falls  on  the  situation  from  experi- 
ments which  have  recently  been  carried  on  by  a  Swed- 
ish psychologist.     He  showed  that  in  every  learning 
process  the  intention  with  which  we  absorb  the  memory 
[£44] 


SOCIAL  SINS  IN  ADVERTISING 

material  is  decisive  for  the  firmness  with  which  it  sticks 
to  our  mind.  If  a  boy  learns  one  group  of  names  or 
figures  or  verses  with  the  intention  to  keep  them  in 
mind  forever,  and  learns  another  group  of  the  same 
kind  of  material  with  the  same  effort  and  by  the  same 
method,  but  with  the  intention  to  have  them  present 
for  a  certain  test  the  next  day,  the  mental  effect  is 
very  different.  Immediately  after  the  learning,  or  on 
the  morning  of  the  next  day,  he  has  both  groups  equally 
firmly  in  his  mind,  but  three  days  later  most  of  what 
was  learned  to  be  kept  is  still  present.  On  the  other 
hand,  those  verses  and  dates  which  were  learned  with 
the  consciousness  that  they  had  to  serve  the  next  day 
have  essentially  faded  away  when  the  time  of  the  test 
has  passed,  even  if  the  test  itself  was  not  given.  Every 
lawyer  knows  from  his  experience  how  easily  he  forgets 
the  details  of  the  case  which  has  once  been  settled  by 
the  court,  as  he  has  absorbed  the  material  only  for  the 
purpose  of  having  it  present  up  to  the  end  of  the  pro- 
cedure. These  Swedish  experiments  have  given  a  cue 
to  further  investigations,  and  everything  seems  to  con- 
firm this  view.  It  brings  out  in  a  very  significant  way 
that  the  impressions  which  are  made  on  our  mind  from 
without  are  in  their  effectiveness  on  the  mind  entirely 
dependent  upon  the  subjective  attitude,  and  the  idea 

[245] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
that  the  same  visual  stimuli  stir  up  the  same  mental 
reactions  is  entirely  misleading.  The  attitude  of  read- 
ing and  the  attitude  of  looking  at  advertisements  are 
so  fundamentally  different  that  the  whole  mental  mech- 
anism is  in  a  different  setting. 

The  result  is  that  whenever  we  are  in  the  reading 
attitude,  we  cannot  take  the  real  advertising  effect  out 
of  the  pictures  and  notices  which  are  to  draw  us  to  the 
consumption  of  special  articles.  The  editor  who  forces 
his  wisdom  into  the  propaganda  page  is  hurting  the 
advertiser,  who,  after  all,  pays  for  nothing  else  but  the 
opportunity  to  make  a  certain  psychological  impression 
on  the  reader.  He  gets  a  third  more  of  this  effect  for 
which  he  has  to  pay  so  highly  if  he  can  have  his  adver- 
tisement on  a  clean  sheet  which  brings  the  whole  mind 
into  that  willing  attitude  to  receive  suggestions  for  buy- 
ing only.  It  is  most  probable  that  the  particular  form 
of  the  experiment  here  reported  makes  this  difference 
between  advertising  pages  with  and  without  reading 
matter  much  smaller  than  it  is  in  the  actual  perusal  of 
magazines,  as  we  forced  the  attention  of  the  individual 
on  every  page  for  an  equal  time.  In  the  leisurely 
method  of  going  through  the  magazine  the  interfering 
effect  of  the  editorial  part  would  be  still  greater.  Com- 
pared with  this  antagonism  of  mental  setting,  it  means 
[246] 


SOCIAL  SINS  IN  ADVERTISING 

rather  little  that  these  scattered  pieces  of  text  induce 
the  reader  to  open  the  advertisement.  If  we  were 
really  of  that  austere  intellect  which  consistently  sticks 
to  that  which  is  editorially  backed,  we  should  ignore 
the  advertisements,  even  if  they  were  crowded  into  the 
same  page.  They  might  reach  our  eye,  but  they  would 
not  touch  our  mind.  Yet  there  is  hardly  any  fear  that 
the  average  American  reader  will  indulge  in  such  sever- 
ity of  taste.  He  is  quite  willing  to  yield  to  the  temp- 
tation of  the  advertising  gossip  with  its  minimum  re- 
quirement of  intellectual  energy  for  its  consumption. 
He  will  therefore  just  as  readily  turn  from  the  articles 
to  the  advertisements  if  they  are  separated  into  two 
distinct  parts.  Frequent  observations  in  the  Pullman 
cars  suggested  to  me  rather  early  the  belief  that  these 
advertisement  parts  in  the  front  and  the  rear  of  the 
magazine  were  the  preferred  regions  between  the  two 
covers. 

Just  as  the  great  public  habitually  prefers  the  light 
comedy  and  operetta  to  the  theatre  performances  of 
high  aesthetic  intent,  it  moves  instinctively  to  those 
printed  pages  on  which  a  slight  appeal  to  the  imagina- 
tion is  made  without  any  claim  on  serious  thought.  It 
is  indeed  a  pleasant  tickling  of  the  imagination,  this 
leisurely  enjoyment  of  looking  over  all  those  picturesque 

[247] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
announcements;  it  is  like  passing  along  the  street  with 
its  shopwindows  in  all  their  lustre  and  glamour.  But 
this  soft  and  inane  pleasure  has  been  crushed  by  the 
arrangement  after  to-day's  fashion.  Those  pages  on 
which  advertising  and  articles  are  mixed  helterskelter 
do  not  allow  the  undisturbed  mood.  It  is  as  if  we  con- 
stantly had  to  alternate  between  lazy  strolling  and 
energetic  running.  Thus  the  chances  are  that  the  old 
attractiveness  of  the  traditional  advertising  part  has 
disappeared.  While  those  broken  ends  of  the  articles 
may  lead  the  reader  unwillingly  to  the  advertisement 
pages,  he  will  no  longer  feel  tempted  by  his  own  in- 
stincts to  seek  those  regions  of  restlessness;  and  if  he  is 
of  more  subtle  sensitiveness,  the  irritation  may  take 
the  stronger  form,  and  he  may  throw  away  the  whole 
magazine,  advertisement  and  text  together.  The  final 
outcome,  then,  must  be  disadvantageous  to  publisher 
and  advertiser  alike.  The  publisher  and  the  editor 
have  certainly  never  yielded  to  this  craving  of  the 
advertiser  for  a  place  on  the  reading  page  without  a 
feeling  of  revolt.  Commercialism  has  forced  them  to 
submit  and  to  make  their  orderly  issues  places  of  dis- 
order and  chaos.  The  advertisers  have  rushed  into  this 
scheme  without  a  suspicion  that  it  is  a  trap.  The  ex- 
periments have  proved  that  they  are  simply  injuring 
[248] 


SOCIAL  SINS  IN  ADVERTISING 

themselves.  As  soon  as  this  is  widely  recognized,  a 
countermovement  ought  to  start.  We  ought  again  to 
have  the  treasures  of  our  magazines  divided  into  a 
straight  editorial  and  a  clean  advertisement  part. 
The  advertisers  will  profit  from  it  in  dollars  and  cents 
through  the  much  greater  psychological  effectiveness  of 
their  announcements,  the  editors  will  be  the  gainers 
by  being  able  to  present  a  harmonious,  sympathetic, 
restful  magazine,  and  the  great  public  will  be  blessed 
by  the  removal  of  one  of  the  most  malicious  nerve  ir- 
ritants and  persistent  destroyers  of  mental  unity. 


[249] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  INVESTOR 


VIII 
THE  MIND  OF  THE  INVESTOR 

THE  psychologist  who  tries  to  disentangle  the  inter- 
play of  human  motives  finds  hardly  a  problem  for  his 
art  to  solve  when  he  approaches  the  conscientious  in- 
vestor. His  work  has  brought  him  savings,  and  his 
savings  are  to  work  for  him.  Hence  they  must  not  lie 
idle,  and  in  the  complicated  market,  with  its  chaotic 
offerings,  he  knows  what  he  has  to  do.  He  seeks  the 
advice  of  the  expert,  and  under  this  guidance,  he  buys 
that  which  combines  great  safety  with  a  fair  income. 
The  intellectual  and  emotional  processes  which  here 
take  control  of  the  will  and  of  the  decision  are  perfectly 
clear  and  simple,  and  the  mental  analysis  offers  not 
the  least  difficulty.  The  fundamental  instincts  of  man 
on  the  background  of  modern  economic  conditions  must 
lead  to  such  rational  and  recommendable  behaviour. 
A  psychological  problem  appears  only  when  such  a 
course  of  wisdom  is  abandoned,  and  either  the  savings 
are  hidden  away  instead  of  being  made  productive,  or 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
are  thrown  away  in  wildcat  schemes.  Yet  of  the  two 
extremes  the  first  again  is  easily  understood.  A  hys- 
teric fear  of  possible  loss,  an  unreasonable  distrust  of 
banks  and  bankers,  keeps  the  overcautious  away  from 
the  market.  But  while  such  a  state  of  mind  is  said  to 
be  frequent  in  countries  in  which  the  economic  life  is 
disorderly,  enterprising  Americans  seldom  suffer  from 
this  ailment,  and  even  the  theoretical  doctrine  that  it 
is  sinful  to  have  capital  working  seems  not  to  have 
affected  practically  those  who  have  the  capital  at  their 
disposal.  The  specific  American  case  is  the  opposite 
one,  and  with  regard  to  those  reckless  investors  it  seems 
less  clear  what  psychological  conditions  lie  at  the  bot- 
tom of  their  rashness. 

Foreign  visitors  have  indeed  often  noticed  with  sur- 
prise that  the  American  public,  in  spite  of  its  cleverness 
and  its  practical  trend  and  its  commercial  instinct,  is 
more  ready  to  throw  its  money  into  speculative  abysses 
than  the  people  of  other  lands.  What  is  the  reason? 
Those  observers  from  abroad  are  usually  satisfied  with 
the  natural  answer  that  the  Americans  are  gamblers, 
or  that  they  have  an  indomitable  desire  for  capturing 
money  without  working.  But  the  students  of  com- 
parative sociology  cannot  forget  the  fact  that  many 
national  institutions  and  customs  of  other  lands  sug- 
[254] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  INVESTOR 

gest  that  the  blame  might  with  much  more  justice  be 
directed  against  the  other  party.  America  prohibits 
lotteries,  while  lotteries  are  flourishing  on  the  European 
continent.  The  Austrians,  Italians,  and  Spaniards  are 
slaves  to  lotteries,  and  even  in  sober  Germany  the 
state  carries  on  a  big  lottery  enterprise.  President 
Eliot  once  said  in  a  speech  about  the  moral  progress  of 
mankind  that  a  hundred  years  ago  a  public  lottery  was 
allowed  in  Boston  for  the  purpose  of  getting  the  funds 
for  erecting  a  new  Harvard  dormitory,  and  he  added 
that  such  a  procedure  would  be  unthinkable  in  New 
England  in  our  more  enlightened  days.  Yet  in  the 
most  civilized  European  countries,  whenever  a  cathe- 
dral is  to  be  built,  or  an  exhibition  to  be  supported,  the 
state  gladly  sanctions  big  lottery  schemes  to  secure  the 
financial  means.  The  European  governments  argue 
that  a  certain  amount  of  gambling  instinct  is  ingrained  in 
human  character,  and  that  it  is  wiser  to  create  a  kind  of 
official  outlet  by  which  it  is  held  within  narrow  limits,  and 
by  which  the  results  yielded  are  used  for  the  public  good. 
This  may  be  a  right  or  a  wrong  policy,  but  in  any 
case,  it  shows  that  the  desire  for  gambling  is  no  less 
marked  on  the  other  side  of  the  ocean.  In  the  same 
way,  while  private  bookmakers  are  not  allowed  at  most 
European  races,  the  official  "totalisators"  offer  to  the 
[255] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
gamblers  the  same  outlets.  Every  tourist  remembers 
from  the  European  casinos  in  the  summer  resorts  the 
famous  game  with  the  little  horses,  a  miniature  Mo- 
naco scheme.  And  in  the  privacy  of  the  too  often  not 
very  private  clubs  extremely  neat  card  games  are  in  order 
which  depend  still  more  upon  chance  than  the  Ameri- 
can poker.  Moreover,  the  Europeans  have  not  even 
the  right  to  say  that  American  life  indicates  a  desire 
for  harvest  without  ploughing.  Every  observer  of 
European  life  knows  to  what  a  high  degree  the  young 
Frenchman  or  Austrian,  Italian,  German,  or  Russian 
approaches  married  life  with  an  eye  on  the  dowry. 
Hundreds  of  thousands  consider  it  as  their  chief  chance 
to  come  to  ease  and  comfort.  The  whole  temper  of  the 
nations  is  adjusted  to  this  idea,  which  is  essentially 
lacking  in  American  society.  It  is  evident  that  no 
method  of  getting  rich  quick  is  more  direct,  and  from  a 
higher  point  of  view  more  immoral,  if  taken  as  a  motive 
for  the  choice  of  a  mate,  than  this  plan  which  Europe 
welcomes.  The  same  difference  shows  itself  in  smaller 
traits.  Europe  invented  the  tipping  system,  which  also 
means  that  money  is  expected  without  an  equivalent  in 
labour.  Tipping  is  essentially  strange  to  the  American 
character,  however  rapid  its  progress  has  been  on  the 
Atlantic  seaboard. 

[256] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  INVESTOR 

Of  course  it  would  be  absurd  to  ignore  the  existence 
and  even  the  prevalence  of  similar  attitudes  in  America. 
If  the  dowry  does  not  exist,  not  every  man  marries 
without  a  thought  of  the  rich  father-in-law.  For- 
bidden gambling  houses  are  abundant,  private  betting 
connected  with  sport  is  flourishing  everywhere;  above 
all,  the  economic  organization  admits  through  a  back- 
door what  is  banished  from  the  main  entrance,  by 
allowing  stocks  to  be  issued  for  very  small  amounts. 
In  Germany  the  state  does  not  permit  stocks  smaller 
than  one  thousand  marks,  equal  to  two  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars,  with  the  very  purpose  of  making  specula- 
tive stock  buying  impossible  for  the  man  of  small 
means.  The  waiter  and  the  barber  who  here  may  buy 
very  small  blocks  of  ten-dollar  stocks  have  no  such 
chance  there.  Stock  buying  is  thus  confined  to  those 
circles  from  which  a  certain  wider  outlook  may  be  ex- 
pected. The  external  framework  of  the  stock  market  is 
here  far  more  likely  to  tempt  the  man  of  small  savings 
into  the  game,  and  the  mere  fact  that  this  form  has 
been  demanded  by  public  consciousness  suggests  that 
the  spirit  which  craves  lotteries  is  surely  not  absent  in 
the  new  world,  even  though  the  lottery  lists  in  the 
European  newspapers  are  blackened  over  before  they 
are  laid  out  in  the  American  public  libraries.  A  certain 

[257] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
desire  for  gambling  and  quick  returns  evidently  exists 
the  world  over.     But  if  the  Americans  are  really  spec- 
ulating more  than  all  the  other  nations,  a  number  of 
other  mental  features  must  contribute  to  the  outcome. 

One  tendency  stands  quite  near  to  gambling,  and  yet 
is  characteristically  different,  the  delight  in  running 
risks,  the  joy  in  playing  with  dangers.  Some  races, 
in  which  the  gambling  instinct  is  strong,  are  yet  afraid 
of  high  risks,  and  the  pleasure  in  seeking  dangerous 
situations  may  prevail  without  any  longing  for  the  re- 
wards of  the  gambler.  It  seems  doubtful  whether  this 
adventurous  longing  for  unusual  risks  belongs  to  the 
Anglo-Saxon  mind.  At  least  those  vocations  which 
most  often  involve  such  a  mental  trend  are  much  more 
favoured  by  the  Irish.  It  is  claimed  that  they,  for 
instance,  are  prominent  among  the  railroad  men,  and 
that  the  excessive  number  of  accidents  in  the  railroad 
service  results  from  just  this  reckless  disposition  of  the 
Irishmen.  It  tempts  them  to  escape  injury  and  death 
only  by  a  hair.  Where  this  desire  to  feel  the  nearness 
of  danger,  yet  in  the  hope  of  escaping  it,  meets  the  crav-( 
ing  for  the  excitement  of  possible  gain,  a  hazardous 
investment  of  one's  savings  must  be  expected. 

Yet  it  would  be  very  one-sided  and  misleading  if  this 
group  of  emotional  features  were  alone  made  respon- 
[2581 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  INVESTOR 

sible  for  the  lamentable  recklessness  in  the  market. 
We  must  first  of  all  necessarily  acknowledge  the  tre- 
mendous powers  of  suggestion  which  the  whole  Ameri- 
can life  and  especially  the  stock  market  contains.  The 
word  suggestion  has  become  rather  colourless  in  popular 
language,  but  for  the  psychologist,  it  has  a  very  def- 
inite meaning.  Suggestion  is  always  a  proposition 
for  action,  which  is  forced  on  the  mind  in  such  a  way 
that  the  impulse  to  opposite  action  becomes  inhibited. 
Under  ordinary  circumstances,  when  a  proposition  is 
made  to  do  a  certain  thing  through  the  mechanism  of 
the  mind,  the  idea  of  the  opposite  action  may  arise.  If 
some  one  tells  the  normal  man  to  go  and  do  this  or 
that,  he  will  at  once  think  of  the  consequences,  and  in  his 
mind  perhaps  the  idea  awakes  of  the  dangerousness  or 
of  the  foolishness,  of  the  immorality  or  of  the  uselessness 
of  such  a  deed,  and  any  one  of  these  ideas  would  be  a 
sufficient  motive  for  ignoring  the  proposed  line  of  be- 
haviour and  for  suppressing  the  desire  to  follow  the  poor 
advice.  But  often  this  normal  appearance  of  the 
opposite  ideas  fails.  If  they  arise  at  all,  they  are  too 
faint  or  too  powerless  to  offer  resistance,  and  often  they 
may  not  even  enter  consciousness.  They  remain  sup- 
pressed, and  the  result  is  that  the  idea  of  action  finds 
its  way  unhindered,  and  breaks  out  into  the  deed  which 

[259] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
normally  would  have  been  checked.     If  this  is  the  case, 
the  psychologist  says  that  the  mind  was  in  a  state  of 
increased  suggestibility. 

The  degree  of  suggestibility,  that  is  of  willingness  to 
yield  to  such  propositions  for  action  and  of  inability  to 
resist  them,  is  indeed  different  from  man  to  man.  We 
all  know  the  stubborn  persons  who  are  always  inclined 
to  resist  whatever  is  proposed  to  them  and  who  do  not 
believe  what  is  told  them,  and  we  know  the  credulous 
ones  who  believe  everything  that  they  see  printed. 
But  the  degree  of  suggestibility  changes  no  less  from 
hour  to  hour  with  the  individual.  In  a  state  of  fatigue 
or  under  the  influence  of  alcohol  or  under  the  influence 
of  strong  emotions,  in  hope  and  fear,  the  suggesti- 
bility is  reenforced.  The  highest  degree  of  suggesti- 
bility is  that  mental  state  which  we  call  hypnotism,  in 
which  the  power  to  resist  the  proposed  idea  of  action  is 
reduced  to  a  minimum.  But  the  chief  factor  in  mak- 
ing us  suggestible  is  the  method  by  which  the  idea  of 
action  is  proposed,  and  in  psychology  we  speak  of  sug- 
gestion whenever  an  action  is  proposed  by  methods 
which  make  the  mind  yielding.  It  certainly  is  not 
objectionable  to  exert  suggestive  influence.  Sugges- 
tions are  the  leading  factors  in  education,  in  art,  and  in 
religion.  The  authoritative  voice  with  which  the 
[260] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  INVESTOR 

teacher  proposes  the  right  thing  has  a  most  valuable 
suggestive  power  to  suppress  in  the  child  the  opposite 
misleading  impulse.  But  surely  suggestions  can  be- 
come dangerous  and  destructive.  If  actions  are 
proposed  in  a  form  which  paralyzes  the  power  to  be- 
come conscious  of  the  opposite  impulses,  the  voice  of 
reason  and  of  conscience  is  silenced,  and  social  and  moral 
ruin  must  be  the  result. 

Everybody  at  once  thinks  of  the  endless  variety  of 
advertisements.  An  announcement  which  merely 
gives  information  is  of  course  no  suggestion.  But  if 
perhaps  such  an  announcement  takes  the  form  of  an 
imperative,  an  element  of  suggestion  creeps  in.  To  be 
sure  we  are  accustomed  to  this  trivial  pattern,  and  no 
one  completely  loses  his  power  to  resist  if  the  proposi- 
tion to  buy  comes  in  the  grammatical  form  of  a  com- 
mand. If  we  had  reached  the  highest  degree  of  sug- 
gestibility, as  in  hypnotism,  we  could  not  read  "Cook 
with  gas  "  without  at  once  putting  a  gas  stove  into  our 
kitchen.  Yet  even  such  a  mild  suggestion  has  its  in- 
fluence and  tends  slightly  to  weaken  the  arguments 
which  would  lead  to  an  opposite  action.  The  adver- 
tisements, however,  which  the  brokers  send  to  our 
house  and  which  are  spread  broadcast  in  the  homes  of 
the  country  to  people  who  have  no  technical  knowledge 

[261] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
of  stock-buying  are  surely  not  confined  to  such  child- 
like and  bland  forms  of  suggestion.  The  whole  group- 
ing of  figures,  the  distribution  of  black  and  white  in  the 
picture  of  the  market  situation,  the  glowing  story  of 
the  probable  successes  with  the  bewildering  hints  of 
special  privileges,  must  increase  the  suggestibility  of 
the  untrained  mind  and  reenforce  powerfully  the  sug- 
gestive energy  of  the  proposition  to  buy.  The  whole 
technique  of  this  procedure  has  nowhere  been  brought 
to  such  virtuosity  as  in  our  country.  The  fact  which 
we  mentioned,  that  the  new  industrial  and  mining  en- 
terprises can  offer  shares  small  enough  to  be  accessible 
to  the  man  without  means,  has  evidently  been  the  chief 
reason  for  developing  a  style  of  appeal  which  would  be 
unthinkable  in  the  countries  where  the  investors  are 
essentially  experienced  business  men. 

But  the  skill  of  the  prospectus  with  its  sometimes  half 
fraudulent  features  would,  after  all,  not  gain  such  in- 
fluence if  suggestion  were  not  produced  from  another 
side  as  well,  namely,  through  the  instinct  of  imitation. 
The  habit  of  making  risky  investments  is  so  extremely 
widespread  that  the  individual  buyer  does  not  feel  him- 
self isolated,  and  therefore  dependent  upon  his  own 
judgments  and  deliberations.  He  feels  himself  as  a 
member  of  a  class,  and  the  class  easily  becomes  a  crowd, 
[262] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  INVESTOR 

even  a  mob,  a  mob  in  which  the  logic  of  any  mob  reigns, 
and  that  is  the  logic  of  doing  unthinkingly  what  others 
do.  It  is  well  known  that  every  member  of  a  crowd 
stands  intellectually  and  morally  on  a  lower  level  than 
he  would  stand  if  left  to  his  spontaneous  impulses  and 
his  own  reflections.  The  crowd  may  fall  into  a  panic 
and  rush  blindly  in  any  direction  into  which  any  one 
may  have  happened  to  start  and  no  one  thinks  about 
it,  or  it  may  go  into  exaltation  and  exuberantly  do  what 
no  one  alone  would  dare  to  risk.  This  mass  conscious- 
ness is  also  surely  a  form  of  increased  suggestibility. 
The  individual  feels  his  own  responsibility  reduced  be- 
cause he  relies  instinctively  on  the  judgment  of  his 
neighbours,  and  with  this  decreased  responsibility  the 
energy  for  resistance  to  dangerous  propositions  dis- 
appears. Men  buy  their  stocks  because  others  are 
doing  it. 

But  finally,  may  we  not  call  it  suggestion,  too,  if  the 
individual  even  tremblingly  accepts  the  risks  of  peril- 
ous deals,  because  he  feels  obliged  to  grasp  for  an  un- 
usually high  income  in  order  to  live  up  to  the  style  of 
his  set?  Of  course  there  is  no  objective  standard  of 
living  if  we  abstract  from  that  where  the  income  simply 
secures  the  needs  of  bare  existence.  Above  that,  every- 
thing depends  upon  the  habits  of  those  around  us.  If 
[263] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
the  community  steadily  screws  up  these  habits,  makes 
life  ostentatious  for  those  of  moderate  means  as  well 
as  for  the  rich,  hysterically  emphasizes  the  material 
Values,  the  will  to  be  satisfied  with  the  income  of  safe 
investments  has  to  fight  against  tremendous  odds. 
The  truly  strong  mind  will  keep  its  power  to  resist,  but 
the  slightly  weak  mind  will  find  the  suggestion  of  the 
surrounding  life  more  powerful  than  the  fear  of  possible 
loss.  If  all  the  neighbours  in  the  village  have  automo- 
biles, the  man  who  would  enjoy  a  quiet  book  and  a 
pleasant  walk  much  more  than  a  showy  ride  will  yield, 
and  spend  a  thousand  dollars  for  his  motor  car  where 
fifty  dollars  for  books  would  have  brought  him  far  more 
intense  satisfaction.  In  no  country  have  fashion  and 
ostentatiousness  taken  such  strong  possession  of  the 
masses,  and  the  willingness  to  be  satisfied  with  a  mod- 
erate income  is"  therefore  nowhere  so  little  at  home. 

Yet  neither  gambling  and  taking  risks,  nor  suggest- 
ibility and  imitation,  are  the  whole  of  the  story.  We 
must  not  forget  the  superficiality  of  thinking,  the  un- 
critical, loose,  and  flabby  use  of  the  reasoning  power 
which  shows  itself  in  so  many  spheres  of  American  mass 
life.  It  is  sufficient  to  see  the  triviality  of  argument 
and  the  cheapness  of  thought  in  those  newspapers 
which  seek  and  enjoy  the  widest  circulation.  It  is  dif- 
[264] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  INVESTOR 

ficult  not  to  believe  that  fundamentally  sins  of  education 
are  to  blame  for  it.  The  school  may  bring  much  to  the 
children,  but  no  mere  information  can  be  a  substitute 
for  a  training  in  thorough  thinking.  Here  lies  the 
greatest  defect  of  our  average  schools.  The  looseness 
of  the  spelling  and  figuring  draws  its  consequences. 
Whoever  becomes  accustomed  to  inaccuracy  in  the  ele- 
ments remains  inaccurate  in  his  thinking  his  life  long. 
If  the  American  public  loses  a  hundred  million  dollars 
a  year  by  investments  in  worthless  undertakings,  surely 
not  the  smallest  cause  is  the  lack  of  concise  reasoning. 
Wrong  analogies  control  the  thought  of  the  masses. 
Any  copper  stock  must  be  worth  buying  because  the 
stock  of  Calumet-Hecla  multiplied  its  value  a  hun- 
dredfold. But  the  irony  of  the  situation  lies  in  the  fact 
that,  as  experience  shows,  those  who  are  the  clearest 
thinkers  in  their  own  fields  are  in  the  realm  of  invest- 
ments as  easily  trapped  as  the  most  superficial  reasoners. 
It  is  well  known  that  college  professors,  school  teachers, 
and  ministers  figure  prominently  on  the  mailing  lis  s  of 
unscrupulous  brokers,  and  their  hard-earned  savings 
are  especially  often  given  for  stocks  which  soon  are  not 
worth  the  paper  on  which  they  are  printed.  Some- 
times, to  be  sure,  this  unpractical  behaviour  of  the 
idealists  really  results  from  an  unreasonable  indifference 

[265] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
to  commercial  questions.  The  true  scholar,  whose  life 
is  tuned  to  the  conviction  that  he  has  more  important 
things  to  do  in  the  world  than  to  make  money,  readily 
falls  into  a  mood  of  carelessness  with  regard  to  the 
money  which  he  does  chance  to  make.  In  this  state  of 
indifference  he  follows  any  advice  and  may  easily  be 
misled. 

But  it  seems  probable  that  the  more  frequent  case  is 
the  opposite  one.  Just  because  the  teacher  and  the  pas- 
tor have  small  chance  to  save  anything,  they  give  their 
fullest  thought  to  the  question  how  to  multiply  their 
earnings,  and  their  mistake  springs  rather  from  their 
ignorance  of  the  actual  conditions.  They  think  that 
they  can  figure  it  out  by  mere  logic  and  overlook  the 
hard  realities.  They  resemble  another  group  of  victims 
who  can  be  found  in  the  midst  of  commercial  life,  the 
over-clever  people  who  rely  on  especially  artificial  argu- 
ments. They  feel  sure  that  they  see  some  points  which 
no  one  else  has  discovered,  and  while  they  may  have 
noticed  some  small  reasonable  points,  they  overlook 
important  conditions  which  the  simpler-minded  would 
have  seen.  They  know  everything  better  than  their 
neighbours,  and  whatever  their  friends  buy  or  sell  they 
at  once  have  a  brilliant  argument  to  prove  that  the 
step  was  wrong.  They  generally  forget  that  the  lis- 
[266] 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  INVESTOR 

tener  must  be  suspicious  of  their  wisdom,  as  they  them- 
selves have  never  earned  the  fruit  of  their  apparent 
wisdom.  They  all,  however,  may  find  comfort  in 
the  well-known  fact  that  hardly  any  great  financier 
has  died,  not  even  a  Harriman  or  a  Morgan,  with- 
out there  being  found  in  his  possession  large  quan- 
tities of  worthless  stocks  and  bonds.  But  the  variety 
of  intellectual  types,  the  careless  and  the  uncritical, 
the  over-clever  and  the  illogical  thinkers,  could  easily 
protect  themselves  against  the  dangers  of  the  short- 
comings in  their  mental  mechanism  if  their  minds 
had  not  another  trait,  which,  too,  is  more  frequent  in 
America  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world  —  the  lack  of 
respect  for  the  expert. 

The  average  American  is  his  own  expert  in  every  field. 
This  is  certainly  not  a  reproach.  It  supplies  American 
public  life  with  an  immense  amount  of  energy  and 
readiness  to  help.  Above  all,  historically,  it  was  the 
necessary  outcome  of  the  political  democracy.  In 
striking  contrast  to  the  European  bureaucracy,  any 
citizen  could  at  any  time  be  called  to  be  postmaster  or 
mayor  or  governor  or  member  of  the  cabinet.  A 
true  American  would  find  his  way,  however  complex 
the  work  before  him.  That  was,  and  is,  splendid.  Yet 
the  development  of  the  recent  decades  has  clearly 

[267] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
shown  that  the  danger  of  this  mental  attitude  after  all 
appears  to  the  newer  American  generation  alarmingly 
great  in  many  fields.  Civil  service  has  steadily  grown, 
the  influence  of  the  engineer  and  the  expert  in  every 
technical  and  practical  field  has  more  and  more  taken 
control  of  American  life,  because  the  go-as-you-please 
methods  of  the  amateur  have  shown  increasingly  their 
ineffectiveness.  Education  has  slowly  been  removed 
from  the  dilettantic,  unprepared  school  boards.  The 
reign  of  the  expert  in  public  life  seems  to  have  begun. 
But  in  private  life  such  an  attitude  is  still  a  part  of  the 
mental  equipment  of  millions.  They  ignore  the  physi- 
cian and  cure  themselves  with  patent  medicines  or 
mental  healing:  they  ignore  the  banker  and  broker  and 
make  their  investments  in  accordance  with  their  own 
amateurish  inspiration.  They  pick  up  a  few  data,  ask 
a  few  friends  who  are  as  little  informed  as  themselves, 
but  do  not  think  of  asking  the  only  group  of  men  who 
make  a  serious,  persistent  study  of  the  market  their 
lifework. 

They  call  this  independence,  and  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  some  features  of  our  home  and  school  education 
may  have  fostered  this  tendency  not  to  submit  to  the 
judgment  of  those  who  know  better.  They  have 
grown  up  in  schools  in  which  the  kindergarten  method 


THE  MIND  OF  THE  INVESTOR 

never  stopped,  in  which  they  were  permitted  to  select 
the  studies  which  they  liked,  and  to  learn  just  what 
pleased  them;  they  were  brought  up  in  homes  in  which 
they  were  begged  and  persuaded,  but  never  forced  to  do 
the  unwelcome;  in  short,  they  have  never  learned  to 
submit  their  will  to  authority.  It  cannot  be  surprising 
that  they  fancy  that  it  is  the  right  kind  of  mental  set- 
ting to  feel  one's  self  the  ultimate  authority  in  every 
field,  and  it  would  be  harmless  indeed  if  the  patent 
medicines  would  really  cure  as  well  as  the  prescriptions 
of  the  physician,  and  if  the  wildcat  schemes  would 
really  yield  the  same  safe  income  as  those  investments 
recommended  by  the  reliable  banker.  It  is  then,  after 
all,  no  chance  that  this  commercially  clever  American 
nation  wastes  more  in  anti-economic  fancies  than  any 
other  people  on  the  globe.  It  is  the  outcome  of  psy- 
chological traits  which  are  rooted  in  significant  con- 
ditions of  our  educational  and  social  life.  Yet  as  soon 
as  these  connections  are  recognized  and  these  reasons 
for  waste  are  understood,  it  ought  not  to  be  difficult 
fundamentally  to  change  all  this  and  to  make  the 
savings  of  the  nation  everywhere  really  sources  of 
national  income. 


[269] 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  DANCE 


IX 

SOCIETY  AND  THE  DANCE 

THE  story  of  the  dance  is  the  history  of  human 
civilization,  of  its  progress  and  regress.  To  be  sure,  as 
the  human  mind  remains  ultimately  the  same,  mankind 
has  often  unintentionally  returned  again  to  the  old 
forms.  The  pirouette,  which  the  artists  of  the  ballet  in- 
vented a  hundred  years  ago,  and  which  was  applauded 
as  the  wonder  of  its  time,  as  we  now  know,  was  danced 
by  old  Egyptians.  Not  seldom  the  same  outer  forms 
referred  to  very  different  mental  motives.  We  learn 
that  many  people  danced  half  naked  as  an  expression 
of  humility.  Who  would  claim  that  the  lack  of  cos- 
tume in  the  ballet  of  to-day  is  a  symbol  of  humility, 
too?  Moreover,  the  right  perspective  can  hardly  be 
gained  as  long  as  we  take  the  narrow  view  and  think 
only  of  those  few  forms  of  dance  which  we  saw  yester- 
day in  the  ballroom  and  the  day  before  yesterday  on 
the  stage  of  the  theatre.  The  dance  has  not  meant  to 
mankind  only  social  pleasure  and  artistic  spectacle, 

[273] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
it  originally  accompanied  the  social  life  and  surrounded 
the  individual  in  every  important  function. 

Dancing  certainly  began  as  a  religious  cult.  It  was 
the  form  in  which  every  increase  of  emotion  expressed 
itself,  grief  as  well  as  joy,  awe  as  much  as  enthusiasm. 
The  primitive  peoples  danced  and  in  many  places  still 
dance  when  the  seasons  change  or  when  the  fields  are 
to  be  cultivated,  when  they  start  on  the  hunt  or  go  to 
war,  when  health  is  asked  for  the  sick,  and  when  the 
gods  are  to  be  called  upon.  The  Iroquois  Indians  have 
thirty-two  chief  types  of  dances,  and  even  among 
civilized  nations,  for  instance  the  Bohemians,  a  hun- 
dred and  thirty-six  dances  may  be  discriminated. 
Moreover,  at  first,  the  dance  is  really  one  with  the  song; 
music  and  dancing  were  only  slowly  torn  asunder. 
And  if  we  look  over  the  whole  world  of  dance,  it  almost 
appears  as  if  what  is  left  to  us  is  after  all  merely  a  poor 
remnant.  Yet  in  these  very  days  much  seems  to  suggest 
that  the  dance  is  to  come  to  its  own  again.  At  least, 
he  who  observes  the  life  along  Broadway  may  indeed 
suspect  that  dancing  is  now  to  be  intertwined  again 
with  every  business  of  life,  and  surely  with  every  meal 
of  life.  No  longer  can  any  hostelry  in  New  York  be 
found  without  dancing,  and  wider  still  than  the  dance 
sweeps  the  discussion  about  it.  The  dance  seems  once 
[274] 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  DANCE 

more  the  centre  of  public  interest;  it  is  cultivated  from 
luncheon  to  breakfast;  it  is  debated  in  every  newspaper 
and  every  pulpit. 

But  is  not  all  this  merely  a  new  demonstration  that 
the  story  of  the  dance  is  the  story  of  civilization? 
Can  we  deny  that  this  recent  craze  which,  like  a  danc- 
ing mania,  has  whirled  over  the  country,  is  a  significant 
expression  of  deep  cultural  changes  which  have  come 
to  America?  Only  ten  years  ago  such  a  dancing  fever 
would  have  been  impossible.  People  danced,  but  they 
did  not  take  it  seriously.  It  was  set  off  from  life  and 
not  allowed  to  penetrate  it.  It  had  still  essentially  the 
rdle  which  belonged  to  it  in  a  puritanic,  hardworking 
society.  But  the  last  decade  has  rapidly  swept  away 
that  New  England  temper  which  was  so  averse  to  the 
sensuous  enjoyment  of  life,  and  which  long  kept  an 
invisible  control  over  the  spirit  of  the  whole  nation. 
Symptoms  of  the  change  abound:  how  it  came  about 
is  another  question.  Certainly  the  increase  and  the 
wide  distribution  of  wealth  with  its  comforts  and  lux- 
uries were  responsible,  as  well  as  the  practical  comple- 
tion of  the  pioneer  days  of  the  people,  the  rich  blossom- 
ing of  science  and  art,  and  above  all  the  tremendous 
influx  of  warm-blooded,  sensual  peoples  who  came  in 
millions  from  southern  and  eastern  Europe,  and  who 

[275] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
altered  the  tendencies  of  the  cool-blooded,  Teutonic 
races  in  the  land.  They  have  changed  the  old  Ameri- 
can Sunday,  they  have  revolutionized  the  inner  life, 
they  have  brought  the  operas  to  every  large  city,  and  the 
kinometograph  to  every  village,  and  have  at  last  played 
the  music  to  a  nation-wide  dance.  Yet  the  problem 
which  faces  every  one  is  not  how  this  dancing  craze 
arose,  but  rather  where  it  may  lead,  how  far  it  is 
healthy  and  how  far  unsound,  how  far  we  ought  to 
yield  to  it  or  further  it,  and  how  far  we  ought  to  resist. 
To  answer  this  question,  it  is  not  enough  to  watch 
the  outside  spectacle,  but  we  must  inquire  into  the 
mental  motives  and  mental  consequences.  Exactly 
this  is  our  true  problem. 

Let  us  first  examine  the  psychological  debit  account. 
No  one  can  doubt  that  true  dangers  are  near  wherever 
the  dancing  habit  is  prominent.  The  dance  is  a  bodily 
movement  which  aims  at  no  practical  purpose  and  is 
thus  not  bound  by  outer  necessities.  ,  It  is  simply  self- 
expression:  and  this  gives  to  the  dancing  impulse  the 
liberty  which  easily  becomes  licentiousness.  Two  men- 
tal conditions  help  in  that  direction;  the  mere  move- 
ment as  such  produces  increased  excitement,  and  the 
excitement  reenforces  the  movement,  and  so  the  dance 
has  in  itself  the  tendency  to  become  quicker  and  wilder 

[276] 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  DANCE 

and  more  and  more  unrestrained.  When  gay  Vienna 
began  its  waltzing  craze  in  the  last  century,  it  waltzed 
to  the  charming  melodies  of  Lanner  in  a  rhythm  which 
did  not  demand  more  than  about  one  hundred  and 
sixty  movements  in  a  minute;  but  soon  came  Johann 
Strauss  the  father,  and  the  average  waltzing  rhythm 
was  two  hundred  and  thirty  a  minute,  and  finally  the 
king  of  the  waltz,  Johann  Strauss  the  younger,  and 
Vienna  danced  at  the  rhythm  of  three  hundred  move- 
ments. But  another  mental  effect  is  still  more 
significant  than  the  impulse  to  increase  rapidity.  The 
uniformity  of  the  movements,  and  especially  of  the  re- 
volving movement,  produces  a  state  of  half  dizziness 
and  half  numbness  with  ecstatic  elements.  We  know 
the  almost  hypnotic  state  of  the  whirling  dervishes  and 
the  raptures  in  the  savage  war  dances;  all  this  in  milder 
form  is  involved  in  every  passionate  dance.  But  noth- 
ing is  more  characteristic  of  such  half-hypnotic  states 
than  that  the  individual  loses  control  of  his  will.  He 
behaves  like  a  drunken  man  who  becomes  the  slave  of 
his  excitement  and  of  every  suggestion  from  without. 
No  doubt  many  seek  the  dancing  excitement  as  a  kind 
of  substitute  for  the  alcoholic  exaltation. 

The  social  injury  which  must  be  feared  if  the  social 
community  indulges  in  such  habits  of  undisciplined, 

[277] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
passionate  expression  needs  no  explaining.  The  mind 
is  a  unit:  it  cannot  be  without  self-control  in  one  de- 
partment and  under  the  desirable  self -discipline  of  the 
will  in  another.  A  period  in  which  the  mad  rush  of 
dancing  stirs  social  life  must  be  unfavourable  to  the 
development  of  thorough  training  and  earnest  en- 
deavour. The  fate  of  imperial  Rome  ought  to  be  the 
eternal  warning  to  imperial  Manhattan.  Italy,  like 
America,  took  its  art  and  science  from  over  the  sea, 
but  gave  to  them  abundant  wealth.  Instead  of  true 
art,  it  cultivated  the  virtuosi,  and  in  Rome,  which  paid 
three  thousand  dancers,  the  dance  was  its  glory  until  it 
began  ingloriously  to  sink. 

Not  without  inner  relation  to  the  inebriety,  and  yet 
distinctly  different,  is  the  erotic  character  of  the  dance. 
Lovemaking  is  the  most  central,  underlying  motive 
of  all  the  mimic  dances  all  over  the  globe.  Among 
many  primitive  peoples  the  dance  is  a  real  pantomimic 
presentation  of  the  whole  story  from  the  first  tender 
awaking  of  a  sweet  desire  through  the  warmer  and 
warmer  courtship  to  the  raptures  of  sensual  delight. 
Civilized  society  has  more  or  less  covered  the  naked 
passion,  but  from  the  graceful  play  of  the  minuet  to 
the  graceless  movements  of  the  turkey  trot  the  sensual, 
not  to  say  the  sexual,  element  can  easily  be  recognized 
[278] 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  DANCE 

by  the  sociologist.  Here  again  cause  and  effect  move 
in  a  circle.  Love  excitement  expresses  itself  in  dance, 
and  the  dance  heightens  the  love  excitement.  This 
erotic  appeal  to  the  senses  is  the  chief  reason  why  the 
church  has  generally  taken  a  hostile  attitude.  For  a 
long  while  the  dance  was  denounced  as  irreligious  and 
sinful  on  account  of  Salome's  blasphemous  dancing. 
Certainly  the  rigid  guardians  of  morality  always  look 
askance  on  the  contact  of  the  sexes  in  the  ballroom. 
To  be  sure,  the  standards  are  relative.  What  appeared 
to  one  period  the  climax  of  immorality  may  be  con- 
sidered quite  natural  and  harmless  in  another.  In 
earlier  centuries  it  was  quite  usual  in  the  best  society 
for  the  young  man  to  invite  the  girl  to  a  dance  by  a  kiss, 
and  in  some  times  it  was  the  polite  thing  for  the  gentle- 
man after  the  dance  to  sit  in  the  lap  of  the  girl.  The 
shifting  of  opinion  comes  to  most  striking  expression, 
if  we  compare  our  present  day  acquiescence  to  the  waltz 
with  the  moral  indignation  of  our  great-grandmothers. 
No  accusers  of  the  tango  to-day  can  find  more  heated 
words  against  this  Argentine  importation  than  the 
conservatives  of  a  hundred  years  ago  chose  in  their 
hatred  of  the  waltz.  Good  society  had  confined  its 
dancing  to  those  forms  of  contact  in  which  only  the 
hands  touched  each  other,  leaving  to  the  peasants  the 

[2791 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
crude,  rustic  forms,  and  now  suddenly  every  mother  has 
to  see  her  daughter  clasped  about  the  waist  by  any 
strange  man.  Even  the  dancing  masters  cried  out 
against  the  intruder  and  claimed  that  it  was  illogical 
for  a  man  to  be  allowed  to  press  a  girl  to  his  bosom  at  the 
sound  of  music,  while  no  one  would  dare  to  do  it  be- 
tween the  dances. 

Thus  the  immorality  of  our  most  recent  dances  may 
be  hardly  worse  than  the  dancing  surprises  of  earlier 
fashions,  but  who  will  doubt  that  these  sensual  ele- 
ments of  the  new  social  gayeties  are  to-day  especially 
dangerous?  The  whole  American  atmosphere  is  filled 
with  erotic  thought  to  a  degree  which  has  been  un- 
known throughout  the  history  of  the  republic.  The 
newspapers  are  filled  with  intra-  and  extra-matrimonial 
scandals,  the  playhouses  commercialize  the  sexual 
instinct  in  lurid  melodramas,  sex  problems  are  the 
centre  of  public  discussion,  all  the  old  barriers  which 
the  traditional  policy  of  silence  had  erected  are  being 
broken  down,  the  whole  nation  is  gossiping  about 
erotics.  In  such  inflammable  surroundings  where  the 
sparks  of  the  dance  are  recklessly  kindled,  the  danger  is 
imminent.  If  a  nation  focuses  its  attention  on  sen- 
suality, its  virile  energy  must  naturally  suffer.  There 
is  a  well-known  antagonism  between  sex  and  sport. 
[280] 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  DANCE 

Perhaps  the  very  best  which  may  be  said  about  sport 
is  that  it  keeps  boyhood  away  from  the  swamps  of 
sexuality.  The  dance  keeps  boyhood  away  from  the 
mratial  field  of  athletics. 

The  dance  has  still  another  psychological  effect  which 
must  not  be  disregarded  from  a  social  point  of  view.  It 
awakes  to  an  unusual  degree  the  impulse  to  imitation. 
The  seeing  of  rhythmic  movements  starts  similar  motor 
impulses  in  the  mind  of  the  onlooker.  It  is  well  known 
that  from  the  eleventh  to  the  sixteenth  century  Europe 
suffered  from  dancing  epidemics.  They  started  from 
pathological  cases  of  St.  Vitus'  dance  and  released  in 
the  excitable  crowds  cramplike  impulses  to  imitative 
movements.  But  we  hear  the  same  story  of  instinctive 
imitations  on  occasions  of  less  tragic  character.  It  is  re- 
ported that  in  the  eighteenth  century  papal  Rome  was 
indignant  over  the  passionate  Spanish  fandango.  It  was 
decided  solemnly  to  put  this  wild  dance  under  the  ban. 
The  lights  of  the  church  were  assembled  for  the  formal 
judgment,  when  it  was  proposed  to  call  a  pair  of  Span- 
ish dancers  in  order  that  every  one  of  the  priests  might 
form  his  own  idea  of  the  unholy  dance.  But  history 
tells  that  the  effect  was  an  unexpected  one.  After  a 
short  time  of  fandango  demonstration  the  high  clerics 
began  involuntarily  to  imitate  the  movements,  and 

[281] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
the  more  passionately  the  Spaniards  indulged  in  their 
native  whirl,  the  more  the  whole  court  was  transformed 
into  one  great  dancing  party.  Even  the  Italian  tar- 
antella probably  began  as  a  disease  with  nervous  danc- 
ing movements,  and  then  spread  over  the  land  through 
mere  imitation  which  led  to  an  ecstatic  turning  around 
and  around.  Whoever  studies  the  adventures  of  Ameri- 
can dancing  during  the  last  season  from  New  York  to 
San  Francisco  must  be  impressed  by  this  contagious 
character  of  our  dancing  habits.  But  this  means  that 
the  movement  carries  in  itself  the  energy  to  spread 
farther  and  farther,  and  to  fill  the  daily  life  with  in- 
creased longing  for  the  ragtime.  We  are  already  ac- 
customed to  the  dance  at  the  afternoon  tea;  how  long 
will  it  take  before  we  are  threatened  by  the  dance  at 
the  breakfast  coffee? 

We  have  spoken  of  three  mental  effects:  the  license, 
the  eroticism,  and  the  imitativeness  which  are  stirred 
up  by  the  dancing  movements.  But  in  the  perspec- 
tive of  history  we  ought  not  to  overlook  another  signif- 
icant trait:  the  overemphasis  on  dancing  has  usually 
characterized  a  period  of  political  reaction,  of  indif- 
ference to  public  life,  of  social  stagnation  and  careless- 
ness. When  the  volcanoes  were  rumbling,  the  masses 
were  always  dancing.  At  all  times  when  tyrants. 
[2821 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  DANCE 

wanted  to  divert  the  attention  of  the  crowd,  they 
gave  the  dances  to  their  people.  A  nation  which 
dances  cannot  think,  but  lives  from  hour  to  hour. 
The  less  political  maturity,  the  more  happiness  does  a 
national  community  show  in  its  dancing  pleasures. 
The  Spaniards  and  the  Polish,  the  Hungarians  and  the 
Bohemians,  have  always  been  the  great  dancers — the 
Gypsies  dance.  There  is  no  fear  that  the  New  Yorkers 
will  suddenly  stop  reading  their  newspapers  and  voting 
at  the  primaries;  they  will  not  become  Spaniards.  But 
an  element  of  this  psychological  effect  of  carelessness 
and  recklessness  and  stagnation  may  influence  them 
after  all,  and  may  shade  the  papers  which  they  read, 
and  even  the  primaries  at  which  they  do  vote. 

Yet  how  onesided  would  it  be,  if  we  gave  attention 
only  to  the  dangers  which  the  dance  may  bring  to  a 
nation's  mind.  The  credit  account  of  the  social  dance 
is  certainly  not  insignificant,  and  perhaps  momentous 
just  for  the  Americans  of  to-day.  The  dance  is  a 
wonderful  discharge  of  stirred  up  energy;  its  rhyth- 
mic form  relieves  the  tension  of  the  motor  apparatus 
and  produces  a  feeling  of  personal  comfort.  The 
power  to  do  this  is  a  valuable  asset,  when  so  much 
emotional  poverty  is  around  us.  The  dance  makes 
life  smooth  in  the  midst  of  hardship  and  drudgery. 

[283] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
For  the  dancer  the  cup  is  always  overflowing,  even 
though  it  may  be  small.  There  is  an  element  of  relaxa- 
tion and  of  joyfulness  in  the  rhythm  of  the  music  and 
the  twinkling  of  the  feet,  which  comes  as  a  blessing  into 
the  dulness  and  monotony  of  life.  The  overworked 
factory  girl  does  not  seek  rest  for  her  muscles  after  the 
day  of  labour,  but  craves  to  go  on  contrasting  them  in 
the  rhythmic  movements  of  the  dance.  So  it  has 
been  at  all  times.  The  hardest  worked  part  of  the  com- 
munity has  usually  been  the  most  devoted  to  the 
gayety  of  popular  dances.  The  refined  society  has  in 
many  periods  of  civilization  declined  to  indulge  in 
dancing,  because  it  was  too  widely  spread  among  the 
lowest  working  classes  in  towns  and  in  the  country. 
The  dance  through  thousands  of  years  has  been  the 
bearer  of  harmless  happiness :  who  would  refuse  a  wel- 
come to  such  a  benefactor?  And  with  the  joyfulness 
comes  the  sociability.  The  dance  brings  people  near 
together.  It  is  unfair  to  claim  that  the  dance  is  ar- 
istocratic, because  it  presupposes  leisure  and  luxury. 
On  the  contrary,  throughout  the  history  of  civilization 
the  dance  has  been  above  all,  democratic,  and  has 
reenforced  the  feeling  of  good  fellowship,  of  community, 
of  intimacy,  of  unity.  Like  the  popular  games  which 
melt  all  social  groups  together  by  a  common  joyful 
[284] 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  DANCE 

interest,  and  like  humour  which  breaks  all  social  bar- 
riers, the  love  for  dancing  removes  mutual  distrust  and 
harmonizes  the  masses. 

This  social  effect  has  manifold  relation  to  another 
aspect  of  the  dance,  which  is  psychologically  perhaps 
the  deepest:  the  dance  is  an  art,  and  as  such,  of  deep 
aesthetic  influence  on  the  whole  mental  life.  Whenever 
the  joy  in  dancing  comes  into  the  foreground,  this  art 
is  developed  to  high  artificiality.  No  step  and  no 
movement  is  left  to  the  chance  inspiration  of  the  mo- 
ment; everything  is  prescribed,  and  to  learn  the  dances 
not  seldom  means  an  almost  scientific  study.  In  the 
great  dancing  periods  of  the  rococo  time  the  mastery 
of  the  exact  rules  appeared  one  of  the  most  difficult 
parts  of  higher  education,  and  as  a  real  test  of  the 
truly  cultivated  gentleman  and  gentlewoman;  scholarly 
books  analysed  every  detail  of  the  necessary  forms,  and 
the  society  dances  in  the  castles  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury were  more  elaborate  than  the  best  prepared  ballets 
on  the  stage  of  to-day.  But  the  popular  dances  of  the 
really  dancing  nations  are  no  less  bound  by  traditions, 
and  we  know  that  even  the  dances  of  the  savages  are 
moving  on  in  strictly  inherited  forms.  Far  from  the 
license  of  haphazard  movements,  the  self-expression  of 
the  dancer  is  thus  regulated  and  bound  by  rules  which 

[285] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
are  taken  by  him  as  prescriptions  of  beauty.  To 
dance  thus  means  a  steady  adjustment  to  artistic  re- 
quirements; it  is  an  aesthetic  education  by  which  the 
whole  system  of  human  impulses  becomes  harmonized 
and  unified.  The  chance  movements  are  blended  into 
a  beautiful  whole,  and  this  reflects  on  the  entire  inner 
setting.  Educators  have  for  a  long  time  been  aware 
that  calisthenics,  with  its  subtly  tuned  movements  of 
the  body,  develops  refinement  in  the  interplay  of  men- 
tal life.  The  personality  who  understands  how  to  live 
in  gentle,  beautiful  motions  through  that  trains  his 
mind  to  beauty.  In  Europe,  for  instance  in  Hellerau 
near  Dresden,  they  have  recently  begun  to  establish 
schools  for  young  men  and  women  in  which  the  main, 
higher  education  is  to  be  moulded  by  the  aesthetics  of 
bodily  expression,  and  the  culture  of  the  symbolic 
dance. 

This  aesthetic  character  of  the  dance,  however,  leads 
still  further.  It  is  not  only  the  training  in  beautiful 
expression;  it  is  the  development  of  an  attitude  which 
is  detached  from  practical  effects  and  from  the  practi- 
cal life  of  outer  success.  The  dance  is  an  action  by 
which  nothing  is  produced  and  nothing  in  the  sur- 
roundings changed.  It  is  an  oasis  in  the  desert  of  our 
materialistic  behaviour.  From  morning  till  night  we 
[286] 


SOCIETY  AND  THE  DANCE 

are  striving  to  do  things,  to  manufacture  something 
in  the  mill  of  the  nation :  but  he  who  dances  is  satisfied 
in  expressing  himself.  He  becomes  detached  from  the 
cares  of  the  hour,  he  acquires  a  new  habit  of  disinter- 
ested attitude  toward  life.  Who  can  underestimate  the 
value  of  such  detachment  in  our  American  life?  The 
Americans  have  always  been  eagerly  at  work,  but  have 
never  quite  learned  to  enjoy  themselves  and  to  take  the 
aesthetic  attitude  which  creates  the  wonders  of  beauty 
and  the  true  harmonies  of  life.  To  forget  drudgery  and 
to  sink  into  the  rhythms  of  the  dance  may  bring  to 
millions  that  inner  completeness  which  is  possible  only 
when  practical  and  aesthetic  attitude  are  blending  in 
a  personality.  The  one  means  restless  change;  the 
other  means  repose,  perfection,  eternity.  This  hard- 
working, pioneer  nation  needs  the  noisy  teachings 
of  efficiency  and  scientific  management  less  than  the 
melodious  teaching  of  song  and  dance  and  beauty. 
In  short,  the  dance  may  bring  both  treacherous  perils 
and  wonderful  gifts  to  our  community.  It  depends 
upon  us  whether  we  reenforce  the  dangerous  elements 
of  the  dance,  or  the  beneficial  ones.  It  will  depend  on 
ourselves  whether  the  dance  will  debase  the  nation, 
as  it  has  so  often  done  in  the  history  of  civilization, 
or  whether  it  will  help  to  lead  it  to  new  heights  of 

[287] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
beauty  and  harmony,  as  it  has  not  seldom  done  before. 
Our  social  conscience  must  be  wide  awake;  it  will  not 
be  a  blind  fate  which  will  decide  when  the  door  of  the 
future  opens  whether  we  shall  meet  the  lady  or  the 
tiger 


[288] 


NAIVE   PSYCHOLOGY 


NAIVE    PSYCHOLOGY 

THE  scientific  psychologists  started  on  a  new  road 
yesterday.  For  a  long  time  their  chief  interest  was  to 
study  the  laws  of  the  mind.  The  final  goal  was  a  text- 
book which  would  contain  a  system  of  laws  to  which 
every  human  mind  is  subjected.  But  in  recent  times 
a  change  has  set  in.  The  trend  of  much  of  the  best 
work  nowadays  is  toward  the  study  of  individual  dif- 
ferences. The  insight  into  individual  personalities  was 
indeed  curiously  neglected  in  modern  psychology.  This 
does  not  mean  that  the  declaration  of  psychological  in- 
dependence insisted  that  all  men  are  born  equal,  nor 
did  any  psychologist  fancy  that  education  or  social 
surroundings  could  form  all  men  in  equal  moulds.  But 
as  scientists  they  felt  no  particular  interest  in  the  rich- 
ness of  colours  and  tints.  They  intentionally  neglected 
the  question  of  how  men  differ,  because  they  were  ab- 
sorbed by  the  study  of  the  underlying  laws  which  must 
hold  for  every  one.  It  is  hardly  surprising  that  the 

[291] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
psychologists  chose  this  somewhat  barren  way;  it  was  a 
kind  of  reaction  against  the  fantastic  flights  of  the 
psychology  of  olden  times.  Speculations  about  the 
soul  had  served  for  centuries.  Metaphysics  had  reigned 
and  the  observation  of  the  real  facts  of  life  and 
experience  had  been  disregarded.  When  the  new  time 
came  in  which  the  psychologists  were  fascinated  by  the 
spirit  of  scientific  method  and  exact  study  of  actual 
facts,  the  safest  way  was  for  them  to  imitate  the  well- 
tested  and  triumphant  procedures  of  natural  science. 
The  physicist  and  the  chemist  seek  the  laws  of  the 
physical  universe,  and  the  psychologist  tried  to  act 
like  them,  to  study  the  elements  from  which  the  psy- 
chical universe  is  composed  and  to  find  the  laws  which 
control  them.  But  while  it  was  wise  to  make  the  first 
forward  march  in  this  one  direction,  the  psychologist 
finally  had  to  acknowledge  that  a  no  less  important 
interest  must  push  him  on  an  opposite  way.  The  hu- 
man mind  is  not  important  to  us  only  as  a  type.  Every 
social  aim  reminds  us  that  we  must  understand  the 
individual  personality.  If  we  deal  with  children  in  the 
classroom  or  with  criminals  in  the  courtroom,  with  cus- 
tomers in  the  market  or  with  patients  in  the  hospital, 
we  need  not  only  to  know  what  is  true  of  every  human 
being;  we  must  above  all  discover  how  the  particular 
[292] 


NAIVE  PSYCHOLOGY 

individual  is  disposed  and  composed,  or  what  is  char- 
acteristic of  special  groups,  nations,  races,  sexes,  and 
ages.  It  is  clear  that  new  methods  were  needed  to 
approach  these  younger  problems  of  scientific  psy- 
chology, but  the  scientists  have  eagerly  turned  with 
concerted  efforts  toward  this  unexplored  region  and 
have  devoted  the  methods  of  test  experiments,  of  sta- 
tistics, and  of  laboratory  measurements  to  the  examina- 
tion of  such  differences  between  various  individuals  and 
groups. 

But  in  all  these  new  efforts  the  psychologist  meets  a 
certain  public  resistance,  or  at  least  a  certain  disregard, 
which  he  is  not  accustomed  to  find  in  his  routine  en- 
deavours. As  long  as  he  was  simply  studying  the  laws 
of  the  mind,  he  enjoyed  the  approval  of  the  wider  pub- 
lic. His  work  was  appreciated  as  is  that  of  the  biolo- 
gist and  the  chemist.  But  when  it  becomes  his  aim  to 
discover  mental  features  of  the  individual,  and  to  fore- 
see what  he  can  expect  from  the  social  groups  of 
men,  every  layman  tells  him  condescendingly  that  it  is 
a  superfluous  task,  as  instinct  and  intuition  and  the 
naive  psychology  of  the  street  will  be  more  successful 
than  any  measurements  with  chronoscopes  and  kymo- 
graphs. Do  we  not  know  how  the  skilful  politician  or 
the  efficient  manager  looks  through  the  mind  of  a  man 

[293] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
at  the  first  glance?  The  life  insurance  agent  has  hardly 
entered  the  door  before  he  knows  how  this  particular 
mind  must  be  handled.  Every  commercial  traveller 
knows  more  than  any  psychologist  can  tell  him,  and 
even  the  waiter  in  the  restaurant  foresees  when  the 
guest  sits  down  how  large  a  tip  he  can  expect  from  him. 
In  itself  it  would  hardly  be  convincing  to  claim  that 
scientific  efforts  to  bring  a  process  down  to  exact  prin- 
ciples are  unnecessary  because  the  process  can  be  per- 
formed by  instinct.  We  all  can  walk  without  needing 
a  knowledge  of  the  muscles  which  are  used,  and  can 
find  nourishment  without  knowing  the  physiology  of 
nutrition.  Yet  the  physiologist  has  not  only  brought 
to  light  the  principles  according  to  which  we  actually 
eat,  but  he  has  been  able  to  make  significant  suggestions 
for  improved  diet,  and  in  not  a  few  cases  his  knowledge 
can  render  services  which  no  instinctive  appetite  could 
replace.  The  psychological  study  of  human  traits,  too, 
may  not  only  find  out  the  principles  underlying  the 
ordinary  knowledge  of  men,  but  may  discover  means 
for  an  insight  which  goes  as  far  beyond  the  instinctive 
understanding  of  man  as  the  scientific  diet  prescribed 
by  a  physician  goes  beyond  the  fancies  of  a  cook.  The 
manager  may  believe  that  he  can  recognize  at  the  first 
glance  for  which  kind  of  work  the  labourer  is  fit:  and 
[294] 


NAIVE  PSYCHOLOGY 

yet  the  psychological  analysis  with  the  methods  of 
exact  experiments  may  easily  demonstrate  that  his 
judgment  is  entirely  mistaken.  Moreover,  although 
such  practical  psychologists  of  the  street  or  of  the  office 
may  develop  a  certain  art  of  recognizing  particular 
features  in  the  individual,  they  cannot  formulate  the 
laws  and  cannot  lay  down  those  permanent  relations 
from  which  others  may  learn. 

Yet  even  this  claim  of  the  psychological  scholar  seems 
idle  pride.  Had  the  world  really  to  wait  for  his  exact 
statistics  and  his  formulae  of  correlation  of  mental 
traits  in  order  to  get  general  statements  and  definite 
descriptions  of  the  human  types  and  of  the  mental 
diversities?  Are  not  the  writings  of  the  wise  men  of  all 
times  full  of  such  psychological  observations?  Has  not 
the  consciousness  of  the  nations  expressed  itself  in  an 
abundance  of  sayings  and  songs,  of  proverbs  and  philo- 
sophic words,  which  contains  this  naive  psychological 
insight  into  the  characters  and  temperaments  of  the 
human  mind?  We  may  go  back  thousands  of  years 
to  the  contemplations  of  oriental  wisdom,  we  may  read 
the  poets  of  classic  antiquity,  or  Shakespeare,  or  Goethe, 
we  may  study  what  the  great  religious  leaders  and 
statesmen,  the  historians  and  the  jurists,  have  said 
about  man  and  his  behaviour;  and  we  find  an  over- 

[295] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
abundance  of  wonderful  sayings  with  which  no  text- 
books of  psychology  can  be  compared. 

This  is  all  true.  And  yet,  is  it  not  perhaps  all  en- 
tirely false?  Can  this  nai've  psychology  of  the  ages,  to 
which  the  impressionism  and  the  wisdom  of  the  finest 
minds  have  so  amply  contributed,  really  make  super- 
fluous the  scientific  efforts  for  the  psychology  of  groups 
and  correlations  and  individual  traits?  It  seems  al- 
most surprising  that  this  overwhelmingly  rich  harvest 
of  prescientific  psychology  has  never  been  examined 
from  the  standpoint  of  scientific  psychology,  and  that 
no  one  has  sifted  the  wheat  from  the  chaff.  The  very 
best  would  be  not  only  to  gather  such  material,  but  to 
combine  the  sayings  of  the  naive  psychologists  in  a 
rounded  system  of  psychology.  In  all  ages  they  surely 
must  have  been  among  the  best  observers  of  mankind, 
as  even  what  is  not  connected  with  the  name  of  an 
individual  author,  but  is  found  in  proverbs  or  in  the 
folk-epics  of  the  nations,  must  have  originated  in  the 
minds  of  individual  leaders.  My  aim  here  is  more 
modest:  I  have  made  my  little  pilgrimage  through  lit- 
erature to  find  out  in  a  tentative  fashion  whether  the 
supply  of  psychology,  outside  of  science,  is  really  so 
rich  and  valuable  as  is  usually  believed.  What  I  wish 
to  offer,  therefore,  is  only  a  first  collection  of  psycho- 
[296] 


NAIVE  PSYCHOLOGY 

logical  statements,  which  the  prescientific  psychologists 
have  proclaimed,  and  surely  will  go  on  proclaiming,  and 
ought  to  go  on  proclaiming,  as  they  do  it  so  beautifully, 
where  we  scientists  have  nothing  but  tiresome  formulae. 
Let  us  begin  at  the  beginning.  There  has  never  been 
a  nation  whose  contemplation  was  richer  in  wisdom, 
whose  view  of  man  was  subtler  and  more  suggestive, 
than  those  of  old  India.  The  sayings  of  its  philosophers 
and  poets  and  thinkers  have  often  been  gathered  in  large 
volumes  of  aphorisms.  How  many  of  these  fine-cut 
remarks  about  man  contain  real  psychology?  The 
largest  collection  which  I  could  discover  is  that  of 
Boehtlinck,  who  translated  seventy-five  hundred  In- 
dian sayings  into  German.  Not  a  few  of  them  refer  to 
things  of  the  outer  world,  but  by  far  the  largest  part  of 
them  speaks  of  man  and  of  man's  feeling  and  doing. 
But  here  in  India  came  my  first  disappointment,  a  dis- 
appointment which  repeated  itself  in  every  corner  of  the 
globe.  After  carefully  going  through  those  thousands 
of  general  remarks,  I  could  not  find  more  than  a  hun- 
dred and  nine  in  which  the  observation  takes  a  psy- 
chological turn.  All  those  other  thousands  of  reflec- 
tions on  men  are  either  metaphors  and  comparisons 
of  distinctly  aesthetic  intent,  or  rules  of  practical 
behaviour  with  social  or  moral  or  religious  purpose. 

[297] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
Yet  even  if  we  turn  to  this  1^  per  cent,  which  has  a 
psychological  flavour,  we  soon  discover  that  among 
those  hundred  and  nine,  more  than  a  half  are 
simply  definitions  of  the  type  of  this:  "Foolish  are 
they  who  trust  women  or  good  luck,  as  both  like  a 
young  serpent  creep  hither  and  thither,"  or  this:  "Men 
who  are  rich  are  like  those  who  are  drunk;  in  walking 
they  are  helped  by  others,  they  stagger  on  smooth 
roads  and  talk  confusedly."  It  cannot  be  said  that 
any  psychological  observations  of  the  fool's  or  of  the 
rich  man's  mind  are  recorded  here.  If  I  sift  those 
maxims  more  carefully,  I  cannot  find  more  than  two 
score  which,  stripped  of  their  picturesque  phrasing, 
could  really  enter  into  that  world  system  of  naive  psy- 
chology. And  yet  even  this  figure  is  still  too  high.  Of 
those  forty,  most  are  after  all  epigrams,  generaliza- 
tions of  some  chance  cases,  exaggerations  of  a  bit  of 
truth,  or  expressions  of  a  mood  of  anger,  of  love,  of  class 
spirit,  or  of  male  haughtiness.  The  analysis  of  wom- 
an's mind  is  typical.  "Inclination  to  lies,  falsehood, 
foolishness,  greediness,  hastiness,  uncleanliness,  and 
cruelty  are  inborn  faults  of  the  woman";  or  "Water 
never  remains  in  an  unbaked  vessel,  flour  in  a  sieve, 
nor  news  in  the  mind  of  women";  or  "The  mind  of  a 
woman  is  less  stable  than  the  ear  of  an  elephant  or  the 
[2981 


NAIVE  PSYCHOLOGY 

flash  of  lightning."  On  the  other  hand  we  read:  "True 
women  have  twice  as  much  love,  four  times  as  much 
endurance,  and  eight  times  as  much  modesty  as  men"; 
or  "The  appetite  of  women  is  twice  as  large,  their 
understanding  four  times  as  large,  their  spirit  of  enter- 
prise six  times  as  large,  and  their  longing  for  love  eight 
times  as  large  as  that  of  men."  Again  we  read:  "The 
character  of  women  is  as  changeable  as  a  wave  of  the 
sea;  their  affection,  like  the  rosy  tint  of  a  cloud  in  the 
evening  sky,  lasts  just  for  a  moment";  or  "When 
women  have  a  man's  money,  they  let  him  go,  as  he  is 
no  longer  of  any  use  to  them." 

The  same  onesidedness  and  epigrammatic  exaggera- 
tion can  always  be  felt  where  whole  groups  of  men  are 
to  be  characterized.  "  The  faults  of  the  dwarf  are  sixty, 
of  the  red-haired  man  eighty,  of  the  humpback  a  hun- 
dred, and  of  the  one-eyed  man  innumerable." 

But  let  us  rather  turn  to  sayings  in  which  the  subt- 
lety of  psychological  observation  deserves  admira- 
tion: "The  drunkard,  the  careless,  the  insane,  the 
fatigued,  the  angiy,  the  hungry,  the  greedy,  the  timid, 
the  hasty,  and  the  lover  know  no  law";  "If  a  man  com- 
mits a  crime,  his  voice  and  the  colour  of  his  face  become 
changed,  his  look  becomes  furtive,  and  the  fire  is  gone 
from  his  eye";  "The  best  remedy  for  a  pain  is  no  longer 

[299] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
to  think  of  it;  if  you  think  of  it,  the  pain  will  increase"; 
"A  greedy  man  can  be  won  by  money,  an  angry  man  by 
folding  the  hands,  a  fool  by  doing  his  will,  and  an  edu- 
cated man  by  speaking  the  truth";  "The  wise  man  can 
recognize  the  inner  thoughts  of  another  from  the  colour 
of  his  face,  from  his  look,  from  the  sound  of  his  words, 
from  his  walk,  from  the  reflections  in  his  eyes,  and  from 
the  form  of  his  mouth";  "The  good  and  bad  thoughts, 
however  much  they  are  hidden,  can  be  discovered  from 
a  man  when  he  talks  in  his  sleep  or  in  his  drunkenness"; 
"The  ignorant  can  be  satisfied  easily,  and  still  more 
easily  the  well  educated,  but  a  man  who  has  become 
confused  by  a  little  knowledge  cannot  be  won  over  even 
by  Brahma";  "Good  people  are  pacified  by  fair  treat- 
ment, even  if  they  have  been  very  angry,  but  not  com- 
mon people;  gold,  though  it  is  hard,  can  be  melted,  but 
not  grass";  "By  too  great  familiarity  we  produce  low 
esteem,  by  too  frequent  visits,  indifference;  in  the 
Malaja  mountains  a  beggar  woman  uses  the  sandal- 
wood  tree  for  firewood";  "The  silly  man  steps  in  with- 
out being  invited,  talks  much  without  being  ques- 
tioned, and  trusts  him  who  does  not  deserve  confi- 
dence"; "New  knowledge  does  not  last  in  the  mind  of 
the  uneducated  any  more  than  a  string  of  pearls  about 
the  neck  of  a  monkey";  "The  inner  power  of  great  men 
[300] 


NAIVE  PSYCHOLOGY 

becomes  more  evident  in  their  misfortune  than  in  their 
fortune;  the  fine  perfume  of  aloes  wood  is  strongest 
when  it  falls  into  the  fire";  "The  anger  of  the  best  man 
lasts  an  instant,  of  the  mediocre  man  six  hours,  of  the 
common  man  a  day  and  a  night,  and  the  rascal  will 
never  get  rid  of  it";  "The  scholar  laughs  with  his  eyes, 
mediocre  people  show  their  teeth  when  they  laugh, 
common  people  roar,  and  true  men  of  wisdom  never 
laugh";  " Truthf ulness  and  cleverness  can  be  found  out 
in  the  course  of  a  conversation,  but  modesty  and  re- 
straint are  visible  at  the  first  glance";  "Grief  destroys 
wisdom,  grief  destroys  scholarship,  grief  destroys  en- 
durance; there  is  no  perturbation  of  the  mind  like 
grief."  Often  we  hardly  know  whether  a  psychological 
observation  or  a  metaphor  is  given  to  us.  In  any  case 
we  may  appreciate  the  fineness  of  a  saying  like  this: 
"Even  a  most  translucent,  beautiful,  perfectly  round 
and  charming  pearl  can  be  strung  on  a  thread  as  soon 
as  it  has  been  pierced;  so  a  mind  which  longs  for  salva- 
tion, perfectly  pure,  free  from  quarrel  with  any  one  and 
full  of  goodness,  will  nevertheless  be  bound  down  to  the 
earthly  life  as  soon  as  it  quarrels  with  itself."  On  the 
borderland  of  psychology  we  may  find  sayings  like 
these:  "As  a  tailor's  needle  fastens  the  thread  in  the 
garment,  so  the  thread  of  our  earthly  lif e  becomes  fast- 

[301] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
ened  by  the  needle  of  our  desires";  "An  elephant  kills 
us  if  he  touches  us,  a  snake  even  if  he  smells  us,  a  prince 
even  if  he  smiles  on  us,  and  a  scoundrel  even  if  he  adores 
us."  But  there  is  one  saying  which  the  most  modern 
psychologist  would  accept,  as  it  might  just  as  well  be  a 
quotation  from  a  report  of  the  latest  exact  statistics. 
The  Indian  maxim  says:  "There  is  truth  in  the  claim 
that  the  minds  of  the  sons  resemble  more  the  minds  of 
the  fathers,  those  of  the  daughters  more  those  of  the 
mothers." 

We  may  leave  the  banks  of  the  Ganges  and  listen  to 
the  wisdom  of  Europe.  Antiquity  readily  trusted  the 
wonderful  knowledge  of  men  which  Homer  displays. 
He  has  instinctively  delineated  the  characters  with  the 
inner  truth  of  life.  How  far  was  this  art  of  the  creative 
poet  accompanied  by  the  power  of  psychological  ab- 
straction? I  do  not  think  that  we  can  find  in  the  forty- 
eight  books  of  Homer  even  a  dozen  contributions  to  our 
unwritten  system  of  the  naive  psychology  of  the  na- 
tions. To  be  sure  we  ought  not  to  omit  in  such  a  sys- 
tem the  following  reflections  from  the  "Odyssey": 
"Wine  leads  to  folly,  making  even  the  wise  to  love  im- 
moderately, to  dance,  and  to  utter  what  had  better 
have  been  kept  silent";  or  "Too  much  rest  itself  be- 
comes a  pain";  or  still  better,  "The  steel  blade  itself 
[302] 


NAIVE  PSYCHOLOGY 

often  incites  to  deeds  of  violence."  We  may  have  more 
doubt  whether  it  is  psychologically  true  when  we  read: 
"Few  sons  are  equal  to  their  sires,  most  of  them  are  less 
worthy,  only  a  few  are  superior  to  their  fathers";  or, 
"Though  thou  lovest  thy  wife,  tell  not  everything 
which  thou  knowest  to  her,  but  unfold  some  trifle 
while  thou  concealest  the  rest."  From  the  "Iliad"  we 
may  quote:  "Thou  knowest  the  over-eager  vehe- 
mence of  youth,  quick  in  temper,  but  weak  in  judg- 
ment"; or,  "Noblest  minds  are  easiest  bent";  or, 
"  With  everything  man  is  satiated  —  sleep,  sweet  singing, 
and  the  joyous  dance;  of  all  these  man  gets  sooner  tired 
than  of  war."  Some  may  even  doubt  whether  Ho- 
mer's psychology  is  right  when  he  claims:  "Even  though 
a  man  by  himself  may  discover  the  best  course,  yet  his 
judgment  is  slower  and  his  resolution  less  firm  than 
when  two  go  together."  And  in  the  alcohol  question 
he  leaves  us  a  choice:  "Wine  gives  much  strength  to 
wearied  men";  or  if  we  prefer,  "Bring  me  no  luscious 
wines,  lest  they  unnerve  my  limbs  and  make  me  lose 
my  wonted  powers  and  strength." 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  theoretical  psychology  of 
the  Bible  is  no  less  meagre.  Almost  every  word  which 
deals  with  man's  mind  reflects  the  moral  and  religious 
values  and  is  thus  removed  from  pure  psychology  into 

[303] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
ethics.  Or  we  find  comparisons  which  suggestively 
illuminate  the  working  of  the  mind  without  amplify- 
ing our  psychological  understanding.  We  approach 
empirical  psychology  most  nearly  in  verses  like  these: 
"  Foolishness  is  bound  in  the  heart  of  the  child,  but  the 
word  of  correction  should  drive  it  far  from  him";  or 
"He  that  is  faithful  in  that  which  is  least,  is  faithful 
also  in  much;  and  he  that  is  unjust  in  the  least,  is  un- 
just also  in  much";  or  "Stolen  waters  are  sweet,  and 
bread  eaten  in  secret  is  pleasant";  or  "The  full  soul 
loatheth  an  honeycomb,  but  to  the  hungry  soul  every 
bitter  thing  is  sweet";  or  "For  if  any  man  be  a  hearer  of 
the  word  and  not  a  doer,  he  is  like  a  man  beholding  his 
natural  face  in  a  glass,  for  he  beholdeth  himself  and 
goeth  his  way  and  straightway  forgetteth  what  manner 
of  man  he  was";  or  "Sorrow  is  better  than  laughter,  for 
by  the  sadness  of  the  countenance  the  heart  is  made 
better."  But  here  we  have  almost  overstepped  the 
limits  of  real  psychology;  we  are  moving  toward  ethics. 
Nor  can  we  call  metaphors  like  this  psychology:  "He 
that  hath  no  rule  over  his  own  spirit  is  like  a  city  that 
is  broken  down  and  without  walls." 

Let  us  turn  for  a  moment  to  the  greatest  knower  of 
men  in  mediaeval  days,  to  Dante.     How  deeply  his 
poetic  eye  looked  into  the  hearts  of  men,  how  living 
[304] 


NAIVE  PSYCHOLOGY 

are  the  characters  in  his  "Divine  Comedy";  and  yet  he 
left  us  hardly  any  psychological  observations.  Some 
psychology  may  be  acknowledged  in  words  like  these: 
"  The  man  in  whose  bosom  thought  on  thought  awakes 
is  always  disappointed  in  his  object,  for  the  strength  of 
the  one  weakens  the  other";  "When  we  are  wholly 
absorbed  by  feelings  of  delight  or  of  grief,  our  soul 
yields  itself  to  this  one  object,  and  we  are  no  longer  able 
to  direct  our  thoughts  elsewhere";  "There  is  no  greater 
grief  than  to  remember  our  happy  time  in  misery." 
It  is  hardly  psychology  if  we  hear,"  The  bad  workman 
finds  fault  with  his  tools";  or,  "Likeness  ever  gives 
birth  to  love";  or  "  The  wisest  are  the  most  annoyed  to 
lose  time." 

From  Dante  we  naturally  turn  to  Shakespeare.  We 
have  so  often  heard  that  he  is  the  greatest  psychologist, 
and  yet  we  ought  not  to  forget  that  such  a  popular 
classification  does  not  in  itself  really  mean  that  Shake- 
speare undertakes  the  work  of  the  psychologist.  It 
does  mean  that  he  creates  figures  with  the  temperament, 
character,  thought,  and  will  so  similar  to  life  and  so  full 
of  inner  mental  truth  that  the  psychologist  might  take 
the  persons  of  the  poet's  imagination  as  material  for  his 
psychological  studies.  But  this  by  no  means  suggests 
that  Shakespeare  phrased  abstract  judgments  about 

[305] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
mental  life;  and  as  we  seek  his  wisdom  in  his  dramatic 
plays,  it  may  be  taken  for  granted  that  in  this  techni- 
cal sense  he  must  be  a  poor  psychologist,  because  he  is 
a  great  dramatist.  Does  not  the  drama  demand  that 
every  word  spoken  be  spoken  not  from  the  author's 
standpoint,  but  from  the  particular  angle  of  the  person 
in  the  play?  And  this  means  that  every  word  is  em- 
bedded in  the  individual  mood  and  emotion,  thought, 
and  sentiment  of  the  speaker.  A  truly  psychological 
statement  must  be  general  and  cannot  be  one  thing  for 
Hamlet  and  another  for  Ophelia.  The  dramatist's 
psychological  sayings  serve  his  art,  unfolding  before 
us  the  psychological  individuality  of  the  speaker,  but 
they  do  not  contribute  to  the  textbooks  of  psychology, 
which  ought  to  be  independent  of  personal  standpoints. 
And  yet  what  a  stream  of  verses  flows  down  to  us, 
which  have  the  ring  of  true  psychology! 

"  Smooth  runs  the  water  where  the  brook  is  deep.  " 

"Trifles  light  as  air 
Are  to  the  jealous  confirmation  strong 
As  proofs  of  holy  writ." 

"Lovers  and  madmen  have  such  seething  brains, 
Such  sharp  fantasies,  that  apprehend 
More  than  cool  reason  ever  comprehends." 
[306] 


NAIVE  PSYCHOLOGY  „ 
"Thus  conscience  does  make  cowards  of  us  all." 

"Present  fears 
Are  less  than  horrible  imagining." 

"Too  swift  runs  as  tardy  as  too  slow." 
"Never  anger  made  good  guard  for  itself." 

"Anger  is  like 

A  full-hot  horse;  who  being  allow'd  his  way 
Self-mettle  tires  him." 

"Suspicion  always  haunts  the  guilty  mind." 

"All  things  that  are, 
Are  with  more  spirit  chased  than  enjoy'd." 

"  Celerity  is  never  more  admir'd 
Than  by  the  negligent." 

"Strong  reasons  make  strong  actions." 

"The  whiteness  in  thy  cheek 
Is  apter  than  thy  tongue  to  tell  thy  errand." 

'The  man  that  hath  no  music  in  himself, 
Nor  is  not  mov'd  with  concord  of  sweet  sounds, 
Is  fit  for  treasons,  stratagems,  and  spoils." 

"Sweet  love,  I  see,  changing  his  property, 
[307] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
Turns  to  the  sourest  and  most  deadly  hate." 

"Love  is  a  smoke  rais'd  with  the  fume  of  sighs." 

"  I  do  not  know  the  man  I  should  avoid 
So  soon  as  that  spare  Cassius;  he  reads  much; 
He  is  a  great  observer.     .     .     ." 

And  so  on. 

We  all  know  it,  and  we  know  it  so  well  and  feel  so 
much  with  Caesar  or  with  Lear  or  with  Othello  or  with 
Macbeth,  that  we  instinctively  take  it  all  for  true  psy- 
chology, while  it  after  all  covers  just  the  exceptional 
cases  of  the  dramatic  situation. 

No!  If  we  are  to  seek  real  generalities,  we  must  not 
consult  the  playwright.  Perhaps  we  may  find  the  best 
conditions  for  general  statement  where  we  do  not  even 
have  to  deal  with  an  individual,  but  can  listen  to  the 
mind  of  the  race  and  can  absorb  its  wisdom  from  its 
proverbs.  Let  us  take  the  word  proverb  in  its  widest 
sense,  including  popular  sayings  which  have  not  really 
the  stamp  of  the  proverb.  There  is  surely  no  lack  of 
sharply  coined  psychology.  This  is  true  of  all  coun- 
tries. I  find  the  harvest  richest  in  the  field  of  the  Ger- 
man proverbs,  but  almost  as  many  in  the  field  of  the 
English,  and  a  large  number  of  sayings  are  common  to 
[308] 


NAIVE  PSYCHOLOGY 

the  two  countries.  Very  characteristic  psychological 
remarks  can  be  found  among  the  Russian  proverbs,  and 
not  a  few  among  those  in  Yiddish.  But  this  type  of 
psychology  is  sufficiently  characterized,  if  we  confine 
ourselves  here  to  the  English  proverbial  phrases.  Of- 
ten they  need  a  commentary  in  order  to  be  under- 
stood in  their  psychological  truth.  We  hear  in  almost  all 
countries:  "Children  and  fools  speak  the  truth."  As 
a  matter  of  course  we  all  know  that  their  chance  of 
speaking  the  objective  truth  is  very  small.  What  is 
psychologically  tenable  is  only  that  they  are  unable  to 
hide  the  subjective  truth.  Many  such  phrases  are 
simply  epigrams  where  the  pleasure  in  the  play  of 
words  must  be  a  substitute  for  the  psychological  truth; 
for  instance:  "Long  hair  and  short  wit."  Not  a  few 
contradict  one  another,  and  yet  there  is  not  a  little 
wisdom  in  sayings  like  these:  "Beware  of  a  silent  dog 
and  still  water";  "Misery  loves  company";  "Hasty 
love  is  soon  hot  and  soon  cold";  "Dogs  that  put  up 
many  hares  kill  none";  "He  that  will  steal  an  egg  will 
steal  an  ox";  "Idle  folks  have  the  least  leisure"; 
"Maids  say  no  and  take";  "A  boaster  and  a  liar  are 
cousins  german";  "A  young  twig  is  easier  twisted  than 
an  old  tree";  "Imitation  is  the  sincerest  flattery"; 
"Pride  joined  with  many  virtues  chokes  them  all"; 
[309] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
"Offenders  never  pardon";  "The  more  wit,  the  less 
courage";  "We  are  more  mindful  of  injuries  than  of 
benefits";  "Where  there's  a  will,  there's  a  way";  "An 
idle  brain  is  the  devil's  workshop";  "Anger  and  haste 
hinder  good  counsel";  "Wise  men  change  their  minds, 
fools  never";  "Sudden  joy  kills  sooner  than  excessive 
grief";  "Lazy  folks  take  the  most  pains";  "Nature 
passes  nurture";  "Necessity  is  the  mother  of  invention"; 
"We  are  apt  to  believe  what  we  wish  for";  "Where 
your  will  is  ready,  your  foot  is  light." 

All  these  proverbs  and  the  maxims  of  other  nations 
may  be  true,  but  can  we  deny  that  they  are  on  the 
whole  so  trivial  that  a  psychologist  would  rather  hesi- 
tate to  proclaim  them  as  parts  of  his  scientific  results? 
As  far  as  they  are  true  they  are  vague  and  hardly 
worth  mentioning,  and  where  they  are  definite  and 
remarkable  they  are  hardly  true.  We  shall  after  all 
have  to  consult  the  individual  authors  to  gather  the 
subtler  observations  on  man's  behaviour,  even  though 
they  furnish  only  semi-naive  psychology.  But  the  Eng- 
lish contributions  are  so  familiar  to  every  reader  that 
it  may  be  more  interesting  to  listen  to  the  foreigners. 
Every  nation  has  its  thinkers  who  have  the  reputation 
of  being  especially  fine  knowers  of  men.  The  French 
turn  most  readily  to  La  Rochefoucauld,  and  the  Ger- 
[310] 


NAIVE  PSYCHOLOGY 

mans  to  Lichtenberg.  Certainly  a  word  of  La  Roche- 
foucauld beside  the  psychologizing  proverb  looks  like 
the  scintillating,  well-cut  diamond  beside  a  moonstone. 
"We  imitate  good  actions  through  emulation,  and  bad 
ones  through  a  malignity  in  our  nature  which  shame 
concealed  and  example  sets  at  liberty";  "It  is  much 
easier  to  suppress  a  first  desire  than  to  satisfy  those  that 
follow";  "While  the  heart  is  still  agitated  by  the  re- 
mains of  a  passion,  it  is  more  susceptible  to  a  new  one 
than  when  entirely  at  rest";  "Women  in  love  more 
easily  forgive  great  indiscretions  than  small  infidelities"; 
"The  reason  we  are  not  often  wholly  possessed  by  a 
single  vice  is  that  we  are  distracted  by  several."  But 
is  this  not  ultimately  some  degrees  too  witty  to  be  true, 
and  has  our  system  of  prescientific  psychology  the  right 
to  open  the  door  to  such  glittering  epigrams  which  are 
uttered  simply  to  tickle  or  to  whip  the  vanity  of  man? 
Or  what  psychologist  would  believe  Lichtenberg  when 
he  claims:  "All  men  are  equal  in  their  mental  apti- 
tudes, and  only  their  surroundings  are  responsible  for 
their  differences"?  He  observes  better  when  he  says: 
"An  insolent  man  can  look  modest  when  he  will,  but  a 
modest  man  can  never  make  himself  look  insolent"; 
or  when  he  remarks:  "Nothing  makes  a  man  old 
more  quickly  than  the  thought  that  he  is  growing 
[311] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
older";  or  "Men  do  not  think  so  differently  about  life 
as  they  talk  about  it";  or  "I  have  always  found  that 
intense  ambition  and  suspicion  go  together";  or  "I  am 
convinced  that  we  not  only  love  ourselves  in  loving 
others,  but  that  we  also  hate  ourselves  in  hating 
others."  Often  his  captivating  psychological  words  are 
spoiled  by  an  ethical  trend.  For  instance,  he  has  hardly 
the  right  to  say :  "In  the  character  of  every  man  is  some- 
thing which  cannot  be  broken;  it  is  the  skeleton  of  his 
character."  But  he  balances  such  psychological  rash- 
ness by  fine  observations  like  these :  ' '  The  character  of  a 
man  can  be  recognized  by  nothing  more  surely  than  by 
the  joke  he  takes  amiss";  and  "I  believe  that  we  get 
pale  from  fright  also  in  darkness,  but  I  do  not  think 
that  we  would  turn  red  from  shame  in  the  dark,  be- 
cause we  are  pale  on  our  own  account,  but  we  blush  on 
account  of  others  as  well  as  on  account  of  ourselves." 
And  we  are  in  the  midst  of  the  up-to-date  psychology 
when  we  read  what  he  said  a  hundred  years  ago: 
"From  the  dreams  of  a  man,  if  he  report  them  accu- 
rately enough,  we  might  trace  much  of  his  character, 
but  one  single  dream  is  not  sufficient;  we  must  have  a 
large  number  for  that." 

I  add  a  few  characteristic  words  of  distinctly  psy- 
chological temper  from  the  great  nonpsychological  au- 
[312] 


NAIVE  PSYCHOLOGY 

thors  of  modern  times.  Lessing  says:  "The  super- 
stition in  which  we  have  grown  up  does  not  lose  its 
power  over  us  when  we  see  through  it;  not  all  who 
laugh  about  their  chains  are  free";  or  again,  "We  are 
soon  indifferent  to  the  good  and  even  to  the  best,  when 
it  becomes  regular";  "The  genius  loves  simplicity, 
while  the  wit  prefers  complexity";  "The  characteristic 
of  a  great  man  is  that  he  treats  the  small  things  as 
small,  and  the  important  things  as  important";  "Who- 
ever loses  his  mind  from  love  would  have  lost  it  sooner 
or  later  in  any  case."  But  on  the  whole,  Lessing  was 
too  much  of  a  fighter  to  be  truly  an  objective  psy- 
chologist. We  may  put  more  confidence  in  Goethe's 
psychology:  "Where  the  interest  fades  away,  the 
memory  soon  fails,  too";  "The  history  of  man  is  his 
character";  "From  nature  we  have  no  fault  which  may 
not  become  a  virtue,  and  no  virtue  which  may  not  be- 
come a  fault";  "A  quiet,  serious  woman  feels  uncom- 
fortable with  a  jolly  man,  but  not  a  serious  man  with  a 
jolly  woman";  "Whatever  we  feel  too  intensely,  we 
cannot  feel  very  long";  "It  is  easy  to  be  obedient  to  a 
master  who  convinces  when  he  commands";  "No- 
body can  wander  beneath  palms  without  punishment; 
all  the  sentiments  must  change  in  a  land  where  elephants 
and  tigers  are  at  home";  "A  man  does  not  become 
[313] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
really  happy  until  his  absolute  longing  has  determined 
its  own  limits";  "Hate  is  an  active  displeasure,  envy 
a  passive  one,  and  it  is  therefore  not  surprising  that 
envy  so  easily  turns  into  hate";  "No  one  can  produce 
anything  important  unless  he  isolate  himself";  "How- 
ever we  may  strive  for  the  general,  we  always  remain 
individuals  whose  nature  necessarily  excludes  certain 
characteristics,  while  it  possesses  certain  others";  "The 
only  help  against  the  great  merits  of  another  is  love"; 
"Man  longs  for  freedom,  woman  for  tradition";  "A 
talent  forms  itself  in  solitude,  a  character  in  the  stream 
of  the  world";  "The  miracle  is  the  dearest  child  of 
belief";  "It  is  not  difficult  to  be  brilliant  if  one  has  no 
respect  for  anything." 

Whoever  falls  into  the  habit  of  looking  for  psy- 
chologizing maxims  in  his  daily  reading  will  easily 
bring  home  something  which  he  picks  up  in  strolling 
through  the  gardens  of  literature.  Only  we  must  al- 
ways be  on  our  guard  lest  the  beautifully  coloured  and 
fragrant  flowers  which  we  pluck  are  poisonous.  Is  it 
really  good  psychology  when  Vauvenargues  writes :  "  All 
men  are  born  sincere  and  die  impostors,"  or,  when 
Brillat-Savarin  insists:  "Tell  me  what  you  eat,  and  I 
shall  tell  you  who  you  are"?  Or  can  we  really  trust 
Mirabeau:  "Kill  your  conscience,  as  it  is  the  most 
[314] 


NAIVE  PSYCHOLOGY 

savage  enemy  of  every  one  who  wants  success";  or 
Klopstock:  "Happiness  is  only  in  the  mind  of  one 
who  neither  fears  nor  hopes";  or  Gellert:  "He  who 
loves  one  vice,  loves  all  the  vices"?  Can  we  believe 
Chamfort:  "Ambition  more  easily  takes  hold  of  small 
souls  than  great  ones,  just  as  a  fire  catches  the  straw 
roof  of  the  huts  more  easily  than  the  palaces";  or  Pas- 
cal: "In  a  great  soul,  everything  is  great";  or  the  poet 
Bodenstedt  when  he  sings:  "A  gray  eye  is  a  sly  eye,  a 
brown  eye  is  roguish  and  capricious,  but  a  blue  eye 
shows  loyalty"?  And  too  often  we  must  be  satisfied 
with  opposites.  Lessing  tells  us:  "All  great  men  are 
modest";  Goethe:  "Only  rascals  are  modest."  The 
psychology  of  modesty  is  probably  more  neatly  ex- 
pressed in  the  saying  of  Jean  Paul:  "Modest  is  he 
who  remains  modest,  not  when  he  is  praised,  but 
when  he  is  blamed":  and  Ebner-Eschenback  adds: 
"  Modesty  which  comes  to  consciousness,  comes  to  an 
end." 

But  in  our  system  of  naive  psychology,  we  ought  not 
to  omit  such  distinctly  true  remarks  as  Rabelais'  much- 
quoted  words:  "The  appetite  comes  during  the  eat- 
ing"; or  Fox's  words:  "Example  will  avail  ten  times 
more  than  precept";  or  Moltke's:  "Uncertainty  in 
commanding  produces  uncertainty  in  obedience";  or 
[315] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
Luther's:  "Nothing  is  forgotten  more  slowly  than  an 
insult,  and  nothing  more  quickly  than  a  benefaction." 
It  is  Fichte  who  first  said:  "Education  is  based  on  the 
self -activity  of  the  mind."  Napoleon  coins  the  good 
metaphor:  "A  mind  without  memory  is  a  fortress 
without  garrison."  Buffon  said  what  professional 
psychologists  have  repeated  after  him:  "Genius  is 
nothing  but  an  especial  talent  for  patience."  Schu- 
mann claims:  "The  talent  works,  the  genius  creates." 
We  may  quote  from  Jean  Paul:  "Nobody  in  the 
world,  not  even  women  and  princes,  is  so  easily  de- 
ceived as  our  own  conscience";  or  from  Pascal: 
"Habit  is  a  second  nature  which  destroys  the  original 
one."  Nietzsche  says:  "Many  do  not  find  their 
heart  until  they  have  lost  their  head";  Voltaire:  "The 
secret  of  ennui  is  to  have  said  everything";  Jean  Paul: 
"Sorrows  are  like  the  clouds  in  a  thunderstorm;  they 
look  black  in  the  distance,  but  over  us  hardly  gray." 
Once  more  I  quote  Nietzsche:  "The  same  emotions 
are  different  in  their  rhythm  for  man  and  woman: 
therefore  men  and  women  never  cease  to  misunder- 
stand each  other." 

This  leads  us  to  the  one  topic  to  which  perhaps  more 
naive  psychology  has  been  devoted  than  to  any  other 
psychological  problem,  the  mental  difference  between 
[316] 


NAlVE  PSYCHOLOGY 

men  and  women.  Volumes  could  be  filled,  and  I  think 
volumes  have  been  filled,  with  quotations  about  this 
eternal  source  of  happiness  and  grief.  But  if  we  look 
into  those  hundreds  of  thousands  of  crisp  sayings  and 
wise  maxims,  we  find  in  the  material  of  modern  times 
just  what  we  recognized  in  the  wisdom  of  India.  Al- 
most all  is  metaphor  and  comparison,  or  is  practical 
advice  and  warning,  or  is  enthusiastic  praise,  or  is 
maliciousness,  but  among  a  hundred  hardly  one  con- 
tains psychology.  And  if  we  really  bring  together  such 
psychologizing  observations,  we  should  hardly  dare  to 
acknowledge  that  they  deserve  that  right  of  generality 
by  merit  of  which  they  might  be  welcomed  to  our  psy- 
chological system.  Bruyere  insists:  "Women  are  ex- 
treme; they  are  better  or  worse  than  men";  and  the 
same  idea  is  formulated  by  Kotzebue:  "When  women 
are  good  they  stand  between  men  and  angels;  when  they 
are  bad,  they  stand  between  men  and  devils."  Rous- 
seau remarks:  "Woman  has  more  esprit,  and  man 
more  genius;  the  woman  observes,  and  the  man  rea- 
sons." Jean  Paul  expresses  the  contrast  in  this  way: 
"No  woman  can  love  her  child  and  the  four  quarters 
of  the  globe  at  the  same  time,  but  a  man  can  do  it." 
Grabbe  thinks:  "Man  looks  widely,  woman  deeply; 
for  man  the  world  is  the  heart,  for  woman  the  heart 
[317] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
is  the  world."  Schiller  claims:  "Women  constantly 
return  to  their  first  word,  even  if  reason  has  spoken  for 
hours."  Karl  Julius  Weber,  to  whom  German  litera- 
ture has  to  credit  not  a  few  psychological  observations, 
says:  "Women  are  greater  in  misfortune  than  men 
on  account  of  the  chief  female  virtue,  patience,  but 
they  are  smaller  in  good  fortune  than  men,  on  account 
of  the  chief  female  fault,  vanity."  Yet  as  to  patience, 
a  German  writer  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Christoph 
Lehmann,  says:  "Obedience  and  patience  do  not  like 
to  grow  in  the  garden  of  the  women."  But  I  am  anx- 
ious to  close  with  a  more  polite  German  observation. 
Seume  holds:  "I  cannot  decide  whether  the  women 
have  as  much  reason  as  the  men,  but  I  am  perfectly 
sure  that  they  have  not  so  much  unreason."  And  yet: 
"How  hard  it  is  for  women  to  keep  counsel,"  and  how 
many  writers  since  Shakespeare  have  said  this  in  their 
own  words. 

The  poets,  to  be  sure,  feel  certain  that  in  spite  of  all 
these  inner  contradictions,  they  know  better  than  the 
psychologists,  and  where  their  knowledge  falls  short, 
they  at  least  assure  the  psychologist  that  he  could  not 
do  better.  Paul  Heyse,  in  his  booklet  of  epigrammatic 
stanzas,  writes  a  neat  verse  which,  in  clumsy  prose, 
says:  "Whoever  studies  the  secrets  of  the  soul  may 
[31S1 


NAIVE  PSYCHOLOGY 

bring  to  light  many  a  hidden  treasure,  but  which  man 
fits  which  woman  no  psychologist  will  ever  discover." 
To  be  sure,  as  excuse  for  his  low  opinion  of  us  psy- 
chologists, it  may  be  said  that  when  he  wrote  it  in 
Munich  thirty  years  ago  there  was  no  psychological 
laboratory  in  the  university  of  his  jolly  town  and  only 
two  or  three  in  the  world.  But  to-day  we  have  more 
than  a  hundred  big  laboratories  in  all  countries,  and 
even  Munich  now  has  its  share  in  them,  so  that  Heyse 
may  have  improved  on  his  opinion  since  then.  But 
in  any  case  we  psychologists  do  not  take  our  revenge 
by  thinking  badly  of  the  naive  psychology  of  the  poets 
and  of  the  man  on  the  street.  Yet  we  have  seen  that 
their  so-called  psychology  is  made  up  essentially  of 
picturesque  metaphors,  or  of  moral  advice,  of  love  ajid 
malice,  and  that  we  have  to  sift  big  volumes  before  we 
strike  a  bit  of  psychological  truth ;  even  then,  how  often 
it  has  shown  itself  haphazard  and  accidental,  vague  and 
distorted!  The  mathematical  statistics  of  the  pro- 
fessional students  of  the  mind  and  then*  test  experi- 
ments in  the  laboratories  are  certainly  less  picturesque, 
but  they  have  the  one  advantage  that  the  results  are 
true.  Mankind  has  no  right  to  deceive  itself  with  half- 
true,  naive  psychology  of  the  amateur,  when  our  world 
is  so  full  of  social  problems  which  will  be  solved  only  if 

[319] 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  SOCIAL  SANITY 
the  aptitudes  and  the  workings  of  the  mind  are  clearly 
recognized  and  traced.  The  naive  psychology  is 
sometimes  stimulating  and  usually  delightful,  but  if 
reliable  psychology  is  wanted,  it  seems  after  all  that 
only  one  way  is  open  —  to  consult  the  psychologists. 

THE  END 


[320] 


THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS 
GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     001  051  228     3 


